A Light in the Dark
by SETI-fan
Summary: When Holtzmann gets a major injury during a bust, Abby discovers she has the responsibility of making all the medical decisions on Holtz's behalf.
1. Chapter 1

**Okay, I know I promised fluff after the angst and pain of my last fic, but this story sprang into my head almost fully formed and refused to go away until I got the whole thing out. Also, this time I promise it's a complete happy ending, none of my previous "relatively happy all things considered". We're just going to have to go through an intense ride to get there.**

* * *

Abby had to admit her teenage self would have been absolutely amazed to know that as a grown-up, searching for a ghost in a haunted mansion would just be part of her daily routine. Not _surprised_ —there had never been any other dream or aspiration she saw herself fulfilling—but delighted that life actually went her way and validated everything she had worked and hoped for. And getting to do so with Erin and two more kindred spirits she loved like family? Oh, teenage Abby would have been practically vibrating with excitement.

Granted, after more than fifty busts, it didn't have quite the same novelty and excitement as the first dozen or so, but Abby never found it boring. Sometimes cold, often uncomfortable and exhausting, but how could she ever get tired of actually witnessing the paranormal, and then getting to blast it with beams of ionized energy and take it home to study?

"Hey, Er. Dare me to lick this candleholder?"

"Ew! Holtz, why would I want you to lick that thing?"

Nope, never boring.

"Come on," Holtzmann goaded, twirling the metal candlestick between her fingers as the others scoped out the large, extravagant dining room. "You know you're curious if it's cold enough in here for my tongue to stick to it."

"Is it cold enough in here for your lips to stick shut so you focus on looking for this damn ghost?" Patty shot back. She had made it clear she was not happy about the lack of a functional heater in the house from the moment they walked into the building. Winter busts were proving more challenging than those in milder weather and made tensions run higher than usual.

"Much as I want to see that, Patty's right," Abby intervened before Holtzmann teased her back, not particularly concerned a short-tempered barb would actually sincerely hurt Holtz's feelings. "We've got a lot of ground to cover and it's only gonna get colder as the sun goes down."

It should be a fairly simple bust once they encountered the entity. The current owner of the mansion had described relatively minor phenomena going on since they had purchased the place and started renovating—odd sightings of something glowing in dark rooms of the house, noises in the night, people waking out of a sound sleep, terrified, but no real poltergeist activity or property damage. Couldn't be higher than a Type 2 haunting, easy as pie. But they still had to find the little bugger first.

"I wish the client could have been a little more specific," Erin commented, peering into the arched edges of the ceiling. "If he found our website, then he could easily have gone through our sighting identification guide."

"Girl, you know don't nobody read stuff before just calling to complain," Patty snorted.

"I'm just saying, a more educated public would make it easier for us to plan for what to expect on a bust."

"I'm still more than happy to do presentations at elementary schools," Holtzmann said, pushing a cabinet door open with the muzzle of her proton wand. "Bring a ghost or two to show off, let 'em make their own trap to take home."

"You're never too young to start educating people," Abby agreed.

"I'm not sure the principals would feel the same way," Patty said.

"Or the parents."

Erin and Patty both jumped a foot when there was a slam behind them, proton wands swinging toward the sound, only to veer away at the last second when they discovered Holtzmann standing beside the now closed cabinet, eyebrows arched at them.

"Jesus, Holtz," Erin breathed, lowering her weapon.

"You both are incredibly tense, you know that?" Holtz said calmly. "You should try some yoga, or maybe primal scream therapy. Works for me."

"You're gonna hear some screaming all right if you scare us like that again," Patty snapped.

"In my defense it wasn't intentional. These hinges have more life to them than I expected." She nudged the door again, demonstrating how easily they moved. "Hey, think maybe they could be haunted too?"

"You know," Abby interrupted, reading the mood of the room, "we've got so many places to look, why don't we split up? Erin and Patty, you can check the upstairs. Holtz, why don't we check the basement since the cold doesn't seem to be bothering you?"

"Y'all want to explore that dank old basement that's probably full of spiders and dead bodies, you go right ahead," Patty agreed.

"Abby, you know me so well," Holtz grinned, flicking her glasses down over her eyes. "Happy hunting, ladies! Call if you find something fun. Or scandalous."

As the pair descended the stone staircase to the somewhat less fancy-looking basement, Abby knew giving everybody a break had been a good choice. As much as the team all loved each other, they had been working nearly every day for the last month without much downtime and the snowy weather meant being cooped up inside a lot. Even the best of friends could get a bit stir crazy in close quarters for that long.

And honestly, she had to admit she was looking forward to patrolling with Holtzmann. They hadn't had a lot of one-on-one time since the team formed up officially and while she was ecstatic to have Erin back and to have had Patty join them, Abby had fond memories of the years at Higgins working as a duo.

She was so caught up in her musings she almost slipped, her foot skidding on an icy step. Holtzmann caught the back of her jumpsuit, steadying her before she truly lost her balance.

"Careful," Holtz said, gesturing to the scattered ice patches on the stone steps. "Looks like they've got a bit of a leak going on. Apparently money doesn't buy watertight sealant."

"Thanks, Holtz. Last thing I need's a twisted ankle while fighting a ghost."

They picked their way carefully down the rest of the stairs, proton wands aiming around the room. It was as large as would be expected to match a house of this size and decked out as a gentleman's game room, complete with pool table, plush leather chairs, and hanging neon signs.

"Money doesn't buy taste either," Abby commented.

"I don't know, I could see putting together something like this in the basement of the firehouse. See which of us actually know how to play pool. I'm thinking Patty's a hustler, what d'ya think?" Holtzmann asked, wrinkling her nose.

"I don't know, somehow you're the one I trust least with geometry-based sports," Abby said, scanning the bar area.

"Eh, I'm more of a ping-pong girl. Hey, what happened over here? Somebody mad about a bad hand of poker?" Holtzmann asked, gesturing toward a half-demolished wall.

"Oh, the owner said he was working on trying to extend that side of the basement to put in a wine cellar," Abby said. "Part of the overall renovations that seem to be ticking off this ghost."

"Nice." Holtz's eyes lit up, taking on an eerie expression as she crept toward the cavernous opening it revealed. "What if he stumbled on some kind of Cask of Amontillado situation down here? Body buried in the walls? You know somebody this wealthy has more than one kind of skeleton in the closets."

"Maybe." Abby frowned at the opening, considering. "Why don't you check that out while I'm scanning over here? See if you find anything."

"On it!" Holtzmann said with a little salute, carefully shouldering her proton wand so she could squeeze into the revealed crawlspace.

Abby resumed her scan of the room, holding the PKE meter near a taxidermy rhinoceros head. They hadn't had a bust that required them to remove animal ghosts from a property, but experience had proven they were possible. Abby was just waiting for the day they had to clear something fascinating out of the American Museum of Natural History. She hoped it was a dinosaur ghost.

"Not seeing too much back here," Holtzmann called.

"Well, it was a good thought anyway." Abby smiled as she passed the scanner over the pool table. "Hey, remember when we were doing that observation at the Chelsea Hotel and you found your way into the ventilation shafts?"

"Oh yeah. That honeymooning couple didn't appreciate my commentary. But hey, if you're not gonna do it right, why do it, huh?"

"I was thinking more of the maid you nearly fell on when you found your way out. I don't think she was too happy cleaning up all that plaster and dirt."

"Yeah, not my proudest dismount. But I helped repair a bunch of stuff around the hotel and cleaned a few rooms with her, so I think she forgave us."

Abby paused, looking back at the hole Holtzmann had disappeared into. "When did you do that?"

"During the daytime, while you were sleeping. I don't sleep that much anyway so…" Abby could infer she shrugged.

"Huh." Abby felt a warm little spot of pride in her chest, similar to when she had found Holtzmann building a guitar in her lab for the rock band member's she had smashed. Holtz was prone to a lot of impulsive behavior, but she had a knack for trying to make up for things once she figured out she had actually inconvenienced someone. Up to and including gifting a newly refurbished hearse to Patty's Uncle a few months back. "That's nice of you, Holtz."

"Eh, cleaning staff aren't paid enough for what they put up with on a good day. Hey, I may have found something."

"Oh yeah?" Abby asked, turning around.

Holtzmann leaned around the remaining section of wall, holding up a tiny skull. "But if this was a person bricked into the wall, he was also transformed into a rat."

"Probably not the cause of our haunting," Abby said, turning her attention back to the lounge area.

They both looked up as they heard the crack of proton streams in the distance.

"Sounds like the girls might have found something."

"I'll check it out," Holtzmann said, heading up the stairs. "Hey, bet I can scare at least one of them if I put this skull on their shoulder."

Abby chuckled, shaking her head. "You know you're just asking to get shot one of these days."

"Not a chance. My babies know me." She patted her proton wand affectionately as she climbed the stairs. "Oh, Erin…"

Abby just sighed, scanning a fake suit of armor—cheap tin, not even real steel—and waiting to hear Erin or Patty yelling at Holtzmann. The sound of proton wands and running footsteps came closer, though, and she looked up, reaching for her own weapon as she got ready.

Then blue light shot through the basement door above her head. She was angled so she couldn't see more than the banister of the stairs and a limited sliver above that, so she didn't directly see what happened next, but the pieces came together in her mind with instant clarity.

Holtzmann ascending the stairs. The ghost blazing in the opposite direction. Holtz's yelp of surprise. The icy patches on the stone steps. A tumble of motion, heard more than seen as Abby could barely process it in time. The clatter of metal.

And then, the crash of a body making impact and the solid crack of what Abby knew instantly and viscerally was a human skull smacking concrete.

"Holtz?!" she called, pocketing the PKE meter and rushing over. Even before she rounded the end of the stairs, she knew it was going to be bad.

Although she didn't get a response, she still hoped she would find Holtz extracting herself from where she had fallen, rubbing a bump on her head and grimacing sheepishly. Instead, Abby's heart froze as she saw Holtzmann sprawled on her back across the bottom stretch of stairs, head resting on the floor. The trajectory of the impact and forces involved as her body's momentum had halted violently played out in Abby's mind unbidden.

"Yo, it went this way!" Patty swung around the corner at the top of the stairs, freezing in her tracks when she saw Holtzmann. "Oh my god."

Abby still stood a short distance away from the base of the stairs, eyes locked on Holtz. "She was going up. The ghost came the other way. Must've knocked her backward."

"Guys, did you get it?" Erin called, nearly running into Patty's back. She peered around Patty and her eyes flew wide, hand coming up to her mouth. "Holtz?"

"Girl, please tell me she's playing," Patty said, voice shaky. "Holtz, this ain't cool. You scared us, okay? Prank's over."

Abby shook her head, kneeling down by Holtzmann's head. "She's not messing with us. Shit." She shrugged off her pack. "I'm…I'm going to check if she's breathing."

"Did you see where the ghost went?" Erin asked.

"No. I was over there under the stairs. It was gone when I got over here."

"We'll cover you," Patty said, swinging her proton wand toward the shadowed corners of the basement. "Go ahead and check on her."

Abby swallowed. "Okay."

She took in the scene nervously. To her relief there was no pool of blood around Holtzmann's head. She didn't like the angle of Holtz's neck or back where she had landed though. Abby was scared just touching her could make things worse, but made herself reach out and carefully press two fingers against Holtzmann's arched throat.

"Well?" Erin asked.

Abby waved a hand to shush them, closing her eyes. It took a moment of focusing to tune out her own racing heart and hone in on the subtle pulse pressing back against her fingertips. She breathed out a huff of relief, noticing from this vantage point the labored movement of Holtz's chest as well.

"She's alive."

"Thank you, Jesus," Patty breathed.

"I'm gonna call an ambulance, yes?" Erin said, managing to stay on a level of urgency instead of panic. "Upstairs. Better reception."

"Yeah, go ahead, baby, I got this," Patty said, wand still trained on the room even though her attention was mostly at the base of the stairs.

As Erin rushed back upstairs to call for help, Abby remained kneeling by Holtzmann's head. She wanted to move her into a more comfortable position but knew better. That kind of impact, the abrupt jerk as her pack snagged on the steps and her head whipped back—Abby closed her eyes against a twinge of vertigo as the sound replayed in her memory again. Yeah, no way she got out of this without neck or back injuries. Moving her was too big a risk.

"She's gonna be okay, all right?" Patty said from above, even though her voice was as unsteady as Abby's.

"Yeah. She'll be okay." Suddenly a new thought leapt through Abby's mind. "Shit! Her pack!"

Patty frowned at her. "Uh, yeah, pretty sure that thing's toast."

"It's also full of radioactive material and explosives," Abby pointed out, digging a diagnostic tool out of her pocket. "If it destabilized or cracked when she landed…"

"Oh damn," Patty groaned.

"Yeah." Abby crawled around to Holtz's side, lying down on the steps and wedging herself in the limited space between Holtz's body and the wall.

"Don't move her! That fall probably messed up her neck something nasty."

"I won't. Just gotta…" Abby pulled out a penlight and held it with one hand while she tried to get to where she could see either of the display screens, try to get a sense how it was cycling. "Okay, looks like it shut off, so that's good. I can't check for microscopic leaks or cracks, but radiation levels are pretty normal around it. Gonna disconnect a few things just to make sure…" She flipped a few of the switches on the side of the pack, making sure even if something was leaking, it couldn't trigger a cascade or meltdown.

"So it's not gonna blow up?" Patty asked.

"It shouldn't. I think it's stable enough, but I can only see a bit from here." Holtz would know, she mused. She knew her babies so well she could tell when a wire needed replacing because the vibrations were off. God, she was going to be upset when she saw how damaged the pack was.

 _If she saw._

She shut out that thought, grateful for the distraction as Erin came back down the stairs. "Ambulance is on its way. They said about fifteen minutes. Has she woken up or anything?"

"No, nothing changed since you left." Patty let her arm rest by lowering the proton wand. "On the plus side, the ghost hasn't made a comeback either."

"Maybe since we're distracted and stopped chasing it it got what it wanted," Abby speculated, sitting up. She kind of wished it would show its face again. After what it did to Holtzmann, she would relish getting to blast that thing into oblivion.

"Well I think the owner will understand if we take care of Holtz and then come back to finish the job later," Erin said.

"Damn right." Patty shifted to sit down on the steps above Holtzmann. "If it comes back we'll bag it, but I'm not chasing that thing around while we're one down. We can make a special trip back and let Holtzy zap it herself, right girl?" Patty said to their unconscious friend.

None of them expected a response, but it felt a little better to at least include her as if she would.

"That's right. We're not done with you, ghost!" Erin called into the basement. "And Holtz is not going to be happy when she wakes up!"

"Erin, I'm with you, one hundred percent," Abby said, "but not sure the best time to antagonize the ghost is when we're stuck down here and distracted."

"True. But that ghost tries anything else with us right now, it's now got three angry people to get through," Patty said, resting her proton wand in her lap.

Erin settled in to sit on the stairs next to her. Unable to join them around Holtz's sprawled body, Abby rested her back against the basement wall, keeping her vigil by Holtz's head.

"She'll be okay," she murmured, as much to herself as the others. _Hang in there, Holtz. You'll be okay._

It probably only was about fifteen to twenty minutes before the ambulance arrived, but the wait felt interminable. Part of Abby desperately hoped Holtzmann would wake up, but she knew it was safer if she didn't try to move. Probably kinder too if she got to sleep through the pain and confusion.

The arrival of the EMTs on the stairs snapped time back into fast motion. They gently directed Erin and Patty back upstairs, but since Abby was still stuck at the bottom, they asked her to move over into the main room of the basement as the young medics hopped over the banister to maneuver a flexible stretcher down to ground level.

Abby paced restlessly, staying out of the way, but still craned her neck to watch as much as she could see between the bustle of bodies. The care with which they extracted Holtzmann from her position on the stairs and strapped her into the immobilizing stretcher reinforced her fears of a neck or spinal injury. What if the fall had paralyzed her? Abby knew immediately they would take care of her no matter what and Holtz would probably design a kickass wheelchair for herself, but it would still change their lives. What if she was completely paralyzed from the neck down and couldn't build anymore, or even speak? What if she didn't make it at all?

"Ma'am?"

Abby jumped.

One of the EMTs was in front of her, very cautiously holding out Holtzmann's dented proton pack by the straps. "I wasn't sure if this needed any kind of disarming or anything like that."

"Oh. No, it's…it's stable. Thanks." Abby accepted it, feeling an odd emotion and protectiveness as she gripped the heavy metal device. She could almost feel Holtz's touch in every weld and piece, even though they were as damaged and inert as their builder.

"We've got her braced for transport," the EMT said. "I'll give you the address for the hospital we're taking her to so you can head over there."

"Thank you," Abby managed, trying to see Holtz, who was now swaddled in the stretcher. "Is she going to be okay?"

"I can't give you any diagnoses," he said apologetically. "You'll have to wait for a doctor to let you know after they've looked her over. I'm sorry."

"Okay. Right."

Despite the weight of her own gear, Abby clutched Holtz's proton pack against her chest as she watched them carry her up the stairs, finally free to leave the heavy atmosphere of the basement and rejoin her teammates.

Patty and Erin jumped up from a bench in the hallway, looking shaken to see how Holtzmann was being moved.

"Oh god," Erin murmured.

Abby just nodded, standing with them as they watched the EMTs carry her out and away for treatment.

Patty's arms wrapped around their shoulders, pulling them closer. "She's gonna be okay."

"Yeah," Abby nodded, choosing to believe it.

Erin leaned into Patty's side, threading an arm around her back to squeeze Abby's arm. After a moment, she said, "You know when she wakes up she's going to be disappointed nobody filmed her fall."

Despite everything, Abby gave a bitter chuckle. "As long as she doesn't try to recreate it, she can pout all she wants."

What she wouldn't give for it to be tomorrow and for them all to be looking back on this and goofing around.

"Come on," she said, gently pushing out of Patty's embrace. "Let's clean up and get going."

OOO

Loading into the Ecto-1 always felt weird when they were one short. Usually it was because of a sick day or mild injury, but this was different. All three of them felt in a bit of a haze. There was a moment of confusion when each automatically headed for their usual seats, only to realize they needed to decide who would drive. Ultimately, Patty offered to, glad for something to occupy her mind. Abby settled into the passenger seat, resting her head against the side window. The lights and bustle of the city made a background blur of color her eyes could pass over, unfocused, as they made their way to the hospital, her mind an unsettled haze of worry.

Rather than answers, arriving at the emergency room just meant more waiting in a new location. They managed to park in the garage, assured the car would be secure, then were directed to a waiting area where they at least had the distraction of filling out paperwork before being left alone with their thoughts and overactive imaginations.

Abby had certainly been to hospitals with Holtzmann before over their years as coworkers, but that had always been for burns or cuts, where she got to stay in the room joking with Holtzmann as she got stitched or bandaged. Ever since starting the Ghostbusters, they had had sprains and bruises and, yes, more burns and cuts, but no injuries serious enough to need surgery. Abby had to conclude she didn't like this version of an ER visit. Maybe she should go demand information from the employee at the check-in desk again.

"Hey, we're getting some attention," Patty said quietly, nudging Erin's arm and nodding across the room.

Abby followed her gaze and saw the people sneaking glances their way and whispering to each other. She could almost hear them doing a headcount, figuring out who was missing, and wondering why. The rumor mills would be in motion in no time on social media, speculating on Holtzmann's condition.

"We should've left our jumpsuits in the car," Erin said.

"If they ask for an autograph right now, I might have to smack a bitch," Patty grumbled.

"They already know I'll punch someone. Hopefully they'll leave us alone," Erin agreed.

"I know if I was in a waiting room with somebody kind of famous, I'd be more worried about my own relatives to bother them," Abby said loud enough to be a pointed comment at the nosier of the onlookers.

"It's okay," Erin said softly, patting her arm. "Save our energy, right?"

Abby leaned back in her chair, still cranky. "Yeah."

A nurse walked over, gesturing for their attention. "Ladies? If you don't mind, we have another waiting room to have you move to."

"Oh, it's okay," Abby said. "We can handle unwanted attention."

"Actually, we have a lot of new patients coming in and since you're going to be here a while, we have other waiting rooms for family and friends of inpatients."

That knocked the remaining wind out of their sails.

"Oh. Okay." Abby and the others got up and followed her out of the room.

They got on an elevator in awkward silence. When the door opened and Abby saw signs for the ICU, she swallowed hard. This probably wasn't going to just be an overnight stay.

A few other groups of people were scattered around the waiting room. Heads popped up when they walked in, then immediately lowered again with disinterest or, at most, mild confusion. Apparently being a Ghostbuster was far less interesting here than a doctor with news on their loved ones.

The team settled into a group of chairs near one wall, speaking only softly so as not to disrespect the somber atmosphere. Patty went to the little refreshment table and came back with a cup of coffee for each of them. Abby accepted hers, even though she didn't feel like drinking it. The expressions of the other relatives were making her fears worse; the same worried, impatient helplessness amplified in each face.

Time passed even slower in the quiet hush. Every time a staff member entered, everyone sat up expectantly, then slumped back if it wasn't for them.

Abby wasn't sure how long they sat there, but her coffee was cold on the table and she had started drifting into a stressful doze when Erin nudged her arm. She jerked awake, seeing a doctor approaching with a nurse at his side.

"Family of Jillian Holtzmann?"

"Yes, that's us," Erin said, standing to meet him. Abby was slightly pleased no one was arguing with their connection to Holtz.

"I'm Dr. Sieber," he said, extending a hand to shake each of theirs. "I'm the primary specialist handling Ms. Holtzmann's recovery."

"So she's still alive?" Patty asked.

"She made it through the initial surgery and exams, yes. It looks like the majority of the damage from her fall is concentrated to her head, neck, and back. She has some broken ribs and a bruised kidney from where I understand she landed on her backpack?"

"Proton pack," Abby corrected automatically, earning an incredulous look from Patty.

"Proton pack," the doctor amended, unbothered. "On the plus side, the bracing of the pack actually protected her spine from worse damage, so we think she avoided permanent thoracic or lumbar injury."

"Well, that's good," Patty sighed.

"But…?" Erin prodded.

"Unfortunately, her head and neck weren't so lucky," he confirmed. "The back of her skull has an impact fracture and her brain took a hard shake. There's significant swelling around her brain, but the fracture is allowing it some room to expand, relieving a bit of the pressure so we most likely won't need to temporarily remove a section of her skull."

The drastic imagery of that last statement barely registered with Abby. Brain swelling. Oh god.

"She doesn't appear to have broken any of the bones in her neck," Sieber continued, "but the impact of the landing did cause her neck to whip backward sharply and we're seeing additional swelling there as well. On the ride over and as we were doing her exams, the swelling did become severe enough it is pressing on her brainstem." He touched the back of his head, indicating where the brain and spinal cord met. "Since the brainstem controls a lot of things like breathing and heartrate, we had to put her on temporary life support until the swelling goes down."

"Life support?" Erin breathed. Abby's knees felt weak.

"But the swelling will go down, right?" Patty pressed.

"We expect it to, yes. We're giving her anti-inflammatories to help the process along and monitoring her progress over the coming days to make sure the tissue's healing. Once the swelling's subsided, then we can assess whether there's been any permanent brain or nerve damage."

Any slight relief Abby felt from his first assurance chilled with the second. She knew it was a risk—you didn't take a fall that bad and walk away with no side effects at all—but she had been really hoping Holtz's bizarre luck would carry her through again.

"I know this is a lot to take in," Sieber said kindly, confirming Abby's suspicion that the others looked as shaken as she did. "And I wish I had more concrete answers for you, but we're at a wait-and-see stage now. Our team is giving her the best care we have and are ready to guide her recovery however we need to proceed. For now, we just need to let her body rest and do its job."

"Can we see her?" Erin asked shakily.

"Of course. They're getting her set up in an observation room now and a nurse will let you know when it's clear to go in. We do have her in a medically induced coma to help her brain heal, but once the swelling's eased, we'll try letting her wake up."

The girls nodded, not sure what else to say.

"Okay. I'm going to turn you over to Alyssa here," he gestured to the nurse, "but I'll be involved throughout Ms. Holtzmann's care, so if you have any concerns, feel free to ask."

Oh, Abby had more concerns than she could voice, but she nodded again and murmured a goodbye as the doctor left.

The nurse stepped forward, holding a clipboard. "We'll give you all a chance to take a break, walk around if you want while we get your friend situated, but I just wanted to confirm a couple things. Dr. Yates?"

Abby jumped slightly. "Oh. That's me, yeah."

"You're aware that you're listed as Dr. Holtzmann's emergency contact, yes?"

"Yeah." That had certainly come into play throughout their years of friendship, yes.

"And are you familiar with your responsibilities as her power of attorney?"

Patty sucked in a little gasp.

Abby laughed a bit mirthlessly. "I don't think Holtzmann's going to be suing anybody over this, much less need me to act as an attorney."

"Power of attorney refers to your ability to give approval on any treatment choices that need to be made during the course of her care," Alyssa explained without condescension. "Since she's in no condition to be able to give consent herself, she's entrusted you to make those decisions on her behalf."

"Oh." Abby hadn't realized she still had room left to be stunned, but there you go.

"Hopefully we won't need to ask you too much, but we may consult you before adding a treatment or have you sign off on medications. That sort of thing."

"Yeah. Whatever she needs, go for it," Abby waved her hand.

"For now, give us a few minutes and when your friend's ready we'll come get you, okay?"

Abby was too in her head to muster a reply.

"Yeah, thank you guys," Patty said for her.

The nurse gave a sympathetic smile and walked off.

Abby sank into a chair, a weird haze settling over the world.

Patty blew out a breath, pacing away a bit. "Damn."

"She'll be okay," Abby said, as if just saying it could make sure that reality came to pass.

"Yeah," Erin agreed shakily, easing into the chair beside her. "It's Holtz. She's gonna be fine."

"Probably gonna freak out the doctors by sitting up all 'a sudden right in the middle of a scan or something," Patty added.

Their words were hollow hope, prayer masked as humor, optimism to defy the fear. Like a flashlight in a haunted house.

There was another little stretch of waiting, shorter than the previous ones, then a different nurse came over and gestured for them to come with him. They were led to a room that had a series of smaller rooms with glass walls radiating off the central area. Each room contained a bed with a patient in it. Abby peered around, but couldn't spot Holtzmann right away.

"This is the nurse's station," the young man said, stopping at the round desk area. "We have rotating shifts of attending staff twenty-four hours a day. We just need you to sign in here whenever you visit."

He waited as the three robotically signed the sheet. "And Ms. Holtzmann's room is right over here," he said, leading them to one of the bays.

For a second, Abby thought they had been brought to the wrong room, nearly stepping back out awkwardly. Then the recognition clicked. They had taken Holtz's hair down. It made sense since they had to check for head injuries, but it was still jarring seeing her out of her signature look.

But Abby only had a moment to register that before the rest of the situation set in. A plastic breathing tube was attached into Holtzmann's mouth with medical tape, the thick tube leading to a machine beside the bed. It hissed in sync with the movement of Holtz's chest, weirdly consistent as it made her lungs inflate in a mechanical rhythm. Her head and neck were stabilized with foam padding, preventing any accidental movement and hiding any visible signs of damage. There was no other bandaging, no blood or obvious bruising anywhere above the clean white sheets that covered everything else but her arms, with their trailing IVs. The majority of the damage was internal, which made the whole situation somehow more unsettling, Holtzmann looking basically okay, but so profoundly not fine at all.

The nurse stayed back to let them have time to themselves. None of them were sure exactly what to do in the small room.

"Can she hear us?" Erin asked.

"Right now, no. She's sedated in addition to the unconsciousness from her injuries. But once the medications and swelling are reduced, she might be able to. Still, there's no harm in talking to her now. There's speculation patients can tell when someone's with them even before they start coming out of comas."

Erin nodded.

Patty took the first step and moved closer to the bed. "Hey baby. I know you're not probably hearing much right now, but we're all here. You get some sleep and we'll be here when you wake up, okay? Just…rest up and…feel better, okay?"

She reached out, moving to run her hand over Holtzmann's head, but stopped, thinking better of it, and let her hand rest on Holtz's shoulder instead, where it probably wouldn't cause any more pain.

Abby took the chair near the head of the bed on the other side, Erin joining her in the next chair. Nothing felt quite real, the shock and exhaustion of the last few hours hitting Abby fully as everything caught up. Erin's hand wrapped around hers, providing at least one anchor of familiarity which she clung to with as much need as Erin clearly was seeking from her.

The room was filled with the steady hiss of the respirator and the unchanging pulse of the EKG, the only signs that Holtzmann was still with them despite her otherwise lifeless state. They settled into the uncomfortable chairs for a long night.

"She'll be okay."


	2. Chapter 2

**It's been a rush around here, but wanted to get the new chapter out before the holidays. (Just barely made it!) Hope you enjoy. There's a lighter moment or two in here, but we've got a ways to go yet.**

 **Hope everyone has a great holiday, whichever you celebrate! If you don't celebrate any, then have a great weekend anyway!**

* * *

Years of fruitless ghost hunting excursions should have made Abby a pro at waiting patiently for the slightest evidence of life to manifest. However, she decided it was a whole different experience when you were waiting for a friend to wake up from a coma.

The sun had risen over the morning mostly unnoticed by the three women sitting vigil at Holtzmann's bedside. The little room extension they occupied in the ICU was entirely internal, the closest windows located in the nearby waiting room that none of them had yet returned to. Since being allowed to be with Holtzmann again, they had left only to use the bathroom, spending the rest of their time dozing in the beat-up chairs provided and alerting at every movement as nurses stopped in to check Holtz's vitals.

Now, feeling somewhat like a zombie after having only lightly napped during the night, Abby was just staring at Holtzmann, not even particularly seeing her. Her mind mostly drifted, wandering idly over troubled thoughts and memories.

"It's weird, isn't it?"

Abby looked up at Erin, seated on the other side of the bed.

"What?" Abby spoke in a hushed voice. Patty, who had held out the longest against sleep, had finally nodded off in her chair and neither of the others wanted to disturb her.

"I know it's Holtz, but she doesn't look like Holtz." Erin nodded toward her. "I just never really realized how much of how I think of her comes down to her aesthetic."

"Yeah. I know what you mean." It was unsettling. Stripped of her glasses, her layers of clothes, her familiar hairstyle, Holtzmann looked too…normal. Most of the time she was larger than life. Without all those affectations, she was far too human. And mortal.

Abby rubbed her eyes. "Just a few more days, then she'll be back to normal. They did put her necklace with the rest of her stuff, right?"

"Yeah." Erin glanced over at the bag of belongings the hospital had included in her room. Her jumpsuit, clothes, glasses, necklace and whatever else they found in her pockets, all neatly tucked away when they had changed her into a hospital gown. "Everything's there."

Abby considered asking Erin to dig it out so she had something to fidget with in the stillness of the room, but decided against it. But she had noticed when they took off their own jumpsuits a few hours ago, Erin transferred her pocketknife to the pocket of her jeans, her hand occasionally going there during their wait.

A nurse poked her head in, speaking equally softly when she noticed Patty sleeping. "Ladies, just letting you know the cafeteria is wrapping up breakfast service in the next fifteen minutes. There's a gap before they're ready to serve lunch, so if you want something you should probably head down now."

"Thanks," Abby said back.

"Are you hungry?" Erin asked.

Abby grimaced. "Don't really have much appetite right now."

"Me neither. Just checking."

Abby knew they probably should get something in their system besides old coffee, since none of them had eaten since before the bust, but couldn't really muster up the desire.

She was considering if they should wake up Patty so she had a choice when her phone rang loudly.

Patty jerked upright as Abby scrambled to silence the ringer. "What is it?"

Abby checked the screen, scowling when she saw the number. "It's Lynch."

"Ugh. Let it go to voicemail," Erin grumbled, leaning back and closing her eyes.

"She's just gonna keep calling," Abby sighed, pressing 'accept'. "Ghostbusters."

"There you are. Care to explain to me why I have a client of yours calling the mayor's office asking if he's able to return to his property or not?"

Abby winced. In all the chaos, they had never contacted the homeowner about what happened. "Sorry. Let him know we'll get back to him."

"Or I can handle the plateload of work I already have for the mayor and you can handle your own upset clients. Don't you have a secretary we're paying for to field calls for you?"

"Oh, shit," Abby whispered, away from the phone's receiver. "Kevin."

Patty's eyes widened. "Aw, man. We forgot to tell him, didn't we?"

"Dr. Yates?" Lynch pressed over the phone.

Abby pinched the bridge of her nose. "Yeah, yeah. We'll come back and finish the guy's house later. It's fine."

"Wait, you left before the job was done? You can't leave a ghost loose in someone's house that you were hired to catch. That is the opposite of your job."

The temper that had been suppressed by shock and worry for the last day crackled to the surface. "Well it's a little hard to bust a ghost when Holtz has busted her head open on a flight of stairs."

There was a startled pause on the other end of the line. Erin and Patty were staring at her with wary eyes too, but Abby ignored them.

"Ah," Lynch managed at last. "Is she—?"

"We're at the hospital. She's in a coma until things get better."

"I see." Abby heard papers shuffling. "I'll inform anyone else who calls you will be closed for the immediate future. I'm sorry—"

"Yeah, thanks." Abby hung up, feeling cranky and irritable.

"Okay?" Patty asked gently.

"Yeah." Abby took a cleansing breath, letting the irritation go. "We should call Kevin. Let him know what's going on."

OOO

As it turned out, Kevin had stayed at the firehouse until his usual shift was over, then headed out to dinner with friends, and shown up at work again the next morning, oblivious anything was unusual. To be fair, they had been gone on overnight busts before, but usually they at least checked in to let him know whether they were coming back or not.

When they filled him in, he didn't seem shocked or upset, particularly. He took it in stride like any other piece of information they might give him to remember for the day, which might be incorporated or forgotten depending on an infinite number of variables from whether he got distracted with a modeling gig to whether he even interpreted the news correctly in the first place. Abby concluded the call letting him know they would be closed for business for a few days until this got sorted out, so he didn't have to come in for work unless he wanted to, then hung up, unsure if he had actually absorbed any of it or not.

She got her answer a few hours later when to their surprise Kevin showed up at the hospital. The nurses checked with the girls that he was an approved guest, then escorted him up to Holtzmann's room.

"Hey, Kev, you didn't have to come all the way out here," Patty greeted him warmly.

"Well, you said you guys were going to be here all day and I work for you, so figured if you needed me to do something, I should be where the rest of you are, right?"

Abby smiled. As much as she could get frustrated with the man, he did have a loyalty to the team in his own odd way. "Thanks, Kevin. I know it would mean a lot to Holtz that you showed up too."

"Cool. So where is she?"

The girls blinked at him, the beeping of the EKG seeming particularly pointed in the momentary silence.

"She's the one in the bed, right here," Erin said patiently, gesturing to the only other person in the tiny room.

"Oh!" He stepped forward, leaning over the bed cheerfully. "Hey, Holtzmann! I like the new hair. Mine used to look like that once."

"She can't really hear anything right now, but I know she'll be glad you came by," Abby said.

"Right. Hey, I brought her some chicken soup." He held up the small take out bag he had carried in. "When you're sick, you eat some chicken soup and you feel better. Little actor trick I picked up."

Abby's exasperation gave way to bemusement, as it so often cycled around Kevin. "Well, that's a really sweet gesture, Kev. I'm sure she'd appreciate it."

"Yeah. So do you move the tube in her mouth so we can use a spoon or…?"

"No, she can't actually eat while she's in a coma. They're basically feeding her nutrients through that IV," Erin explained, pointing. "But it's the thought that counts."

"Ah." Kevin nodded. Then he stepped around the bed, lifting the container of soup and moving to reach the IV bag.

"No, no, no!" The girls all moved in unison, stopping him before he found some way to mess with the bag of fluid or hook up the soup container.

"I'm just gonna put that over here for when she wakes up, okay?" Erin said, tucking the soup safely away on a side table.

"Hey, Kev, how about we check out the gift shop downstairs?" Patty suggested as she steered him gently away from the bed. "See if we can find something Holtz would like for when she's feeling better."

"Sure! Think they have anything explosive?"

"Well, I'm thinking not, but we can look. Just maybe don't ask for that too loud around security…"

Abby exhaled a ragged breath of relief once they were out of the room. "Okay, we don't leave him alone in here with her."

Erin nodded. "I'll make sure they have a note. No unsupervised visits."

While Erin went to the nurses' station to set up that rule, Abby took a break to step out into the waiting room and get some coffee. She took a swig, closing her eyes as she tried to will the caffeine through her veins. None of them had slept well in over twenty-four hours and it was getting harder to stave off exhaustion.

"Dr. Yates."

Abby groaned. There wasn't enough caffeine in the hospital to deal with this.

She turned to face Jennifer Lynch, making no effort to hide her displeasure. "Made the trip all the way uptown to visit in person. Is the mayor sending his respect?"

"No. Well, he does. Not officially, of course, but you know."

"What do you want, Jennifer?" Abby demanded irritably.

The other woman cleared her throat, pulling a folder from beneath her arm. "There are a few things that need your signature in order to proceed."

Abby was fairly sure her weariness was making her hear things. "I'm sorry, you seriously are asking me to do paperwork right now?"

"Nothing detailed," Lynch soothed unctuously. "Just a few things that couldn't wait until after Holtzmann is feeling better."

Abby sighed, throwing away her Styrofoam cup. "Fine. Whatever. If it gets you out of here faster, show me what to sign."

"Excellent." Lynch pulled out a particular set of forms and a pen. "So when I informed Mr. Burman—the homeowner?—about what happened, he sends his regards, of course, but also requested you sign this liability waiver, confirming that the accident was caused by the ghost and not anything about his property he could be seen as responsible for."

"That's his priority?" Abby growled. "She's—No. You know what? Fine. It's not like Holtz or the rest of us could afford lawyers on par with what he probably has anyway. Why bankrupt ourselves over it no matter how big an asshole he is?"

"Very reasonable," Lynch nodded as Abby scribbled an aggressive signature on the forms. "And then I already have these filled out, you just need to sign at the bottom next to my signature."

"What's this, does the guy want emotional distress for being associated with this too?" Abby snorted.

"It's the paperwork to tell the hospital how to direct all Holtzmann's medical bills to the mayor's office. From the sound of it, the necessary treatment will probably exceed what's left in your organization's emergency budget, so this will make sure any surplus charges are covered, regardless of what treatment options you need to approve."

Abby paused, her temper sputtering. She hadn't even gotten to thinking about cost yet, but from her limited experience, she knew even one overnight stay in a hospital was pricy, not even factoring in all the MRIs and CT scans and medications and the airlift they had used to bring her here… Their insurance through the city was pretty decent, but it didn't cover everything and their budget wasn't bottomless.

"Oh," she managed, feeling the fire go out of her aggravation. "That's…very generous of him. Thank you."

"He technically doesn't know it yet, but I'm certain it will get approved," Lynch assured her. "Just…try not to have any more injuries on this scale for the rest of the fiscal year, okay?"

The budding affection in Abby's chest settled back to its usual expectations. "We'll try."

"Wonderful," Lynch cooed again as Abby signed the form.

A gentle hand touched Abby's arm, summoning her attention without startling her. "Ms. Yates?" a nurse she recognized said. "Just letting you know we're moving Ms. Holtzmann for some new scans to check whether there's been any change in the level of swelling since the initial measurements. She should be back in about half an hour, okay?"

"Great, thanks," Abby said, much more sincerely. "They'll let us know if anything's going on?"

"Yes. Until then, feel free to take a break."

"Okay. Thanks again."

The nurse nodded, touching her arm again with a sympathetic smile, then heading back to her post. Watching her go, Abby saw a group of medics in various colors of scrubs carefully maneuvering Holtzmann's bed—IVs, respirator, and all—out of the ICU and down the hallway toward an elevator.

Glancing back over to return to work, Abby realized Lynch was staring after Holtzmann, looking slightly pale, a glimpse of undefinable, but genuine emotion in her eyes.

"So that's the only place I need to sign?" Abby asked, looking at the paper, pretending she hadn't noticed the other woman's lapse.

Lynch jumped, clearing her throat as her persona snapped back into place. "Yes, just…right down there and that's all I need." She accepted the forms and pen back. "So I'll get that to the billing department here and then you shouldn't need to do anything further with regards to payment. Just keep me up-to-date when you can, yes?"

"Sure, no problem."

"And Abby? I hope things are better soon."

"Thanks," Abby gave her a small attempt at a smile.

Lynch nodded awkwardly, then headed out down the hall.

"They're taking Holtz for more scans," Erin said, walking over from the nurse's station to stand beside Abby. She looked at Lynch's departing form. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah." Abby shook off her exhaustion. She wrapped an arm around Erin's waist, drawing in the familiar warmth and comfort. "What do you say we go find Patty and Kevin and get some lunch? And maybe a nap."

OOO

While the scans revealed the swelling around Holtzmann's brain was decreasing encouragingly, it looked like it would be a few days before it would be completely gone. The girls realized they weren't realistically going to be able to stay at the hospital twenty-four hours a day for that long and would have to take some shifts to go back to their own apartments to shower and change. They told Kevin to just take the next few days off and they would let him know when they needed him as things progressed.

It also dawned on Abby that Holtz had a daily maintenance routine, such as it was, with the technology at the firehouse and nobody had been checking containment since they left the day before. The last thing they needed was some kind of meltdown or ghost breakout while they were distracted with all of this.

They drew straws—well, technically played Rock-Paper-Scissors—and Erin wound up staying for the first shift at the hospital while Abby and Patty went back to the firehouse to drop off the Ecto-1 and their gear. Admittedly Abby was pretty much a given for going along since she was the only one who had any real sense what Holtz's routine was. As much as anyone could understand it.

The Ecto-1 felt even emptier heading back to headquarters with only two people in it. Abby drove while Patty dozed in the passenger seat, still probably running on the least sleep of all of them.

Unloading the equipment was even less fun with only the two of them. They dragged the gear to its appropriate places like zombies, not even talking. Abby hesitated with Holtz's smashed proton pack, then decided to just drop it off in the lab for her to deal with when she woke up. Abby knew depriving Holtz of a project involving her babies would disappoint her, no matter how much she was injured or worn out.

They headed up to the third floor living space first for a much-needed shower and change of clothes. It was amazing how much just hot water, soap, and a clean outfit could rejuvenate the body. Abby felt notably more human as she toweled off her hair and made a fresh cup of real, honest coffee in their own kitchenette in her second home.

With her brain kicking back up to normal speed, Abby finally headed down to the lab. Working with Holtzmann for years, she had a basic understanding of what to watch out for with the various machines they worked with. That said, she wished at some point Holtz had made a checklist the others could follow just in case something like this happened. Abby adjusted the programs she recognized and vented what she knew needed venting. Other than that, she walked the lab with her coffee, checking screens, looking for anything that was red that should be green or glowing when it shouldn't be, listening for anything that was rattling, creaking, or making other sounds of distress she wasn't used to hearing.

As far as she could tell, everything was stable and cycling normally. She couldn't detect anything out of place.

Well, except the one very glaring thing.

"Weirdly quiet in here without her, isn't it?"

Abby looked over, not sure when Patty had joined her. "Yeah. _Not_ hearing something explode or catch fire is actually more unsettling."

Patty huffed an affectionate laugh. "Well, it won't be like this for long. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts before we start having to refill the fire extinguisher cabinet again."

Abby chuckled too, but it felt hollow. The stillness was disturbing. Since they had moved in the firehouse had been full of life and energy. Even during quieter times, at least one of them was always actively working on something or putting on a movie for them to watch together while they tried to let their minds relax after a stressful day. It always felt like something was going on. This was the first time the building felt empty. She had expected to feel Holtzmann's presence here in her lab, but instead, her absence was just more chillingly pronounced.

Maybe it was because she was so tuned in for any unusual noises, but Abby caught the hitching in Patty's breath even though she was clearly trying to hide it. Forgetting the machines, Abby cautiously came around the workbench, her suspicions confirmed as Patty tried to turn around and pretend she was looking at something on a shelf.

"Patty? You okay?"

"Yeah." The crack in her voice and sniffle that followed belied her words. "All good."

"Aw, Pats…" Abby hugged Patty from behind.

She heard the tears come on fully. "Just thinking how close we came yesterday. What if she'd snapped her neck or the docs didn't get to her in time?"

"I know. But it didn't happen that way."

"I know. I just…" She sniffled, throat tight. "Last time I talked to her, I was mad and snapping at her. What if that _was_ the last time we talked? I don't want her to go out thinking I'm mad at her."

Abby's own vision blurred with tears. "Hey, uh-uh. No. I promise she didn't think that. She knows how much you care about her, and you're one of her favorite people in the world. You two bicker and tease each other; that's part of why she likes you. She never took any of it seriously. I mean, the reason she was going back upstairs was to try to mess with you guys again."

"Are you serious?" Patty said, a more normal tone cutting through the crying.

Abby smiled in spite of herself. "Yeah. She found a rat skull and was going to try to scare you or Erin."

"Girl…" Patty shook her head. "How much you want to bet she's messing with us now and could've woken up right away?"

"There's a non-zero chance you could be right. But either way, you'll have a chance to talk with her again when she wakes up and it'll all be fine. For now, how about you go get some sleep? I'm going to take a look at the containment unit, then probably head back so Erin can take a break."

"Okay. Come here." Patty turned around and bent down to squeeze Abby in a tight hug herself. "Just promise you're gonna get some sleep yourself too. You can't run on caffeine forever."

"Yes, mom," Abby grinned.

"See, now you starting to sound like Holtz. Go check on the ghosts. Meet back at the hospital for dinner?"

"Sounds like a plan."

As Patty headed for the stairs, Abby took a deep breath and looked around the lab again. _Hurry up and get better, Holtz. Everybody here misses you._

OOO

They fell into a pretty good routine over the next few days, making sure each of them took a break and bringing their laptops in so they could work on things while still being with Holtzmann. Erin had the thought that maybe playing some of her music quietly would help lure her back to consciousness. It hadn't worked yet, but it definitely made the room feel more like home for the rest of the girls.

After about three days, Dr. Sieber called them into his office.

"So as we were hoping, her swelling has gone down and the pressure on her brain should be back to normal."

The girls brightened up with relief. "You serious?" Patty asked.

"I am. Here's her initial MRI when we first brought her in versus the new one from today on the right," he said, turning his computer monitor to show them side-by-side cross-sections of Holtzmann's skull.

"Huh. You know, I was expecting something weirder from her brain," Patty commented.

"Well, it's only showing the structure, not the function," Abby said dryly.

"As you can see," the doctor continued pointedly, "the dark areas are fluid, indicating inflammation due to damage. The fluid has mostly been reabsorbed at this point other than what is intended to be there as a cushion around the brain. The bone is also knitting well; if you notice the cracks in the back of her skull are beginning to get less pronounced. They'll need a lot longer to heal fully, but it's a good start."

"Look at the corticalization…" Erin murmured, eyes wide. Then she frowned. "What's that bright streak there?"

The doctor looked at the smear low on the MRI image. "Ah, just a distortion or artifact when the image was taken. Happens sometimes, but it doesn't block the image, so we can still see clearly enough to make a diagnosis. At this point, we're going to do a CT scan just to make certain, and if all is consistent, we'll start easing back on her medications and try removing life support so she can start breathing on her own again."

"That's wonderful!" Abby exclaimed. "So will we be able to talk to her today or tomorrow…?"

"Well, she won't wake up immediately," Sieber said, his tone tempering the excitement in the room. "She is still recovering from a head injury and even once she's breathing on her own, may not wake up for weeks or may be in and out of consciousness for a while before truly waking up."

"Hey, progress is progress," Patty snorted. "We'll take it!"

"Good attitude to have. The scan and assessment will probably take about an hour, maybe, and you probably don't want to watch the breathing tube being removed, so why don't you all go out for a bit and check back around two or so?"

They thanked him enthusiastically and headed out to have a celebratory lunch somewhere other than the cafeteria. It wasn't over yet—there was still the looming specter of possible brain and nerve damage to get past—but after days of fear it was wonderful to feel things had taken a turn for the better.

The mood over lunch was lighter, edging on jovial as they joked about what it was going to be like trying to keep a conscious Holtzmann out of trouble in the hospital and debating whether they would be allowed to bring in soldering equipment to keep her occupied.

A little before two, they headed back to the ICU. It was a bit early, but they were eager to see Holtz looking more herself again. Just the removal of the respirator was going to make Abby feel infinitely better about everything.

As they turned the corner to the nurses' area, Abby caught a brief glimpse that Holtz's bed was still empty and felt a little flash of disappointment before she became aware of the nurse approaching her.

"Ms. Yates?"

"Yes, that's me. Holtzmann isn't ready yet?"

"No. Unfortunately there were some complications during the procedure."

Ice sucked away the lingering positive mood from lunch. The empty bed suddenly took on a horrifying potential.

"What kind of complications?" Erin managed.

"She's not…?" Patty tried to gesture her fears rather than having to say the word out loud.

"When they tried to remove the life support, she was unable to breathe on her own. They were able to resuscitate her, but she's going to need to stay on life support a while longer."

"Oh god." Abby reached over for Erin, feeling her hand reaching back.

"I thought she was getting better," Patty said. "What happened?"

"Dr. Sieber will come talk to you while they're getting your friend back to her room. Right now we just need you to sign this form approving the extended use of life support."

Abby signed mechanically, barely aware of what it was, then followed the others back to the waiting room and sank into a chair.

Resuscitation. That meant that Holtz had died, basically. Not breathing, heart stopped. While they were out eating and laughing, Holtz was dying and being dragged back to…whatever this state counted as.

Overcome by nausea, Abby leaned forward, resting her arms on the table in front of her and letting her head hang. Erin rubbed her back soothingly, but none of them had any words.

Finally, the doctor walked over, looking appropriately tired and saddened. He shook their hands again as they rose, an automatic ingrained gesture, like the handshake of a politician.

"So, one of the nurses filled you in on the situation?"

"The basics, yeah," Erin said.

"You said she was doing good," Patty said. "What happened?

"We're still figuring that out," Sieber sighed. "The CT confirmed the swelling has gone away, but when we turned off the respirator, her system didn't kick in on its own as it should have."

 _That's a gentle way of saying she stopped breathing_ , Abby mused grimly.

"Is there any hint _why_?" Erin asked.

"We're going to review her scans in detail to see if we missed something that's still pressing on her brainstem—if the cartilage is overgrowing while it's healing or if something's blocking the normal cerebrospinal fluid to that area. We've also taken her off the sedative in case it's suppressing her recovery or causing a bad reaction. She'll be in a true coma now, able to wake up whenever the rest of her system allows it."

"And if none of those are the reason?" Patty asked.

"If that is the case, _then_ we'll explore whether there's permanent nerve damage. But she still has her expected reflexes below the point of injury, so we're ruling out full paralysis as a possibility."

"How long until you know?" Abby asked, rubbing her forehead against the growing headache.

"I don't want to make promises. We're giving her case our most thorough attention. We don't want to miss anything. And we're going to continue observing her for any changes that may clue us in."

Patty blew out a breath, shaking her head. Abby empathized. This wasn't going to be over soon and the future lying before them was uncertain and stressful.

"We have her back in her room if you'd like to go see her. I'll be checking in routinely and keep you up-to-date on what we find."

"Thank you," they all murmured weakly.

"We're going to do everything in our power for her," Sieber promised "We're all rooting for her here too."

The trio trudged back to Holtzmann's room, at least slightly relieved to see it occupied this time. It felt even more cramped now and Abby immediately saw why. A new machine had been added, with wires training to electrodes that were stuck to various spots on Holtzmann's head. An EEG. Abby knew the machines reasonably well. She and Holtz had invested in one a few years back for their lab at Higgins to study baseline and paranormal brain activity, testing it on each other, a handful of student volunteers that Abby offered extra credit to, and the couple of supposed possession survivors they had found to interview. It hadn't led to much, thanks to their small sample size, but Abby had the reference to actually know what Holtz's brainwaves normally looked like. The waveforms on the digital screen were far too slow for what even sleeping brain activity should be.

"You know if she was awake, she'd be loving that," Erin commented with sad fondness, nodding to the EEG.

"Hey Holtzy, you're missing out on getting to see your brain measured," Patty told her.

There wasn't so much as a twitch in the readout. The brainwaves stayed constant, unaffected by their presence.

"That's okay," Abby said with false, weary cheer. She sat down at her usual spot by Holtz's side. "You get all the rest you need, Holtz. We'll be here when you wake up."

 _Just, if possible, please wake up soon._


	3. Chapter 3

**On a roll with the holiday break! This one's a bit of a short chapter, but I didn't want to cram too much into one and the next chapter's a doozy. Consider this the calm before the storm.**

* * *

The days came and went, their stay at the hospital extending to a full week. Further MRIs, CT scans, X-rays, and various other measurements and blood tests revealed nothing the doctors could pinpoint as the cause of Holtzmann's inability to breathe on her own. Dr. Sieber and his team refused to admit defeat, but they did admit they were in a holding pattern now, waiting for Holtzmann herself to provide some new clue or change that would reveal what she needed. For now, all they could do was wait, observe, and maintain life support and painkillers to ease her recovery.

Unfortunately, life outside the hospital wasn't willing to wait. While the team put off non-emergency calls for later, eventually hauntings that posed a genuine threat to the public cropped up and Jennifer Lynch called to put in a sensitive, but pressing request from the mayor that at least some of them return to work.

They settled on having one person stay available in case something happened while the others went on the bust. Since Abby was the only one who could sign off on treatment, this typically meant she was left sitting vigil. She talked to Holtzmann to pass the time and let her know she wasn't alone. Whenever Abby left for food, the bathroom, or to stretch her legs, she always told Holtz where she was going. It was probably silly—Holtzmann showed no signs of hearing her—but it made Abby feel like she was still with them.

It also helped her take her mind off the thought that haunted her during those quiet hours, about what would happen if Holtzmann never got better. About what choices she might be required to make as Holtz's power of attorney should it become clear she wasn't ever going to wake up.

When Erin and Patty returned, they would regale Abby and Holtz with the story of the bust they had just been on. They all sort of hoped their animated description of the adventures would evoke at least some response from Holtz, but to their dismay she remained unchanged.

Honestly, nothing they did seemed to affect Holtzmann's condition at all and as they neared the second week of waiting, it became clear there was no guarantee the end was in sight. With a heavy sense of resignation, they decided they had to start returning to a normal work schedule with all three of them going on busts together. The nurses knew how to reach them if needed, resulting in all of them jumping every time a text or call came in while they were away from the hospital.

"I was just thinking," Patty said one night as they all crashed in Holtz's room, resting off the exhaustion of a bust. "Are we sure there's nobody else we should be contacting about Holtz's situation?"

"You mean like some other kind of specialist?" Erin asked. "Get a second or third opinion?"

"I mean like extended family, relatives, somebody. I know she doesn't have parents out there, but isn't there anybody who might be worried about not hearing from her?"

"I already talked to her plutonium dealer," Abby said. "He sent a 'get well' card."

"You know what I mean," Patty pressed.

Abby rubbed her eyes. "The only person she's ever talked about from her past is that mentor, Dr. Gorin."

"They seemed pretty close," Erin said. "Odd as she was, I think she cares about Holtz. It's probably a good idea to let her know."

Abby groaned. "I'll handle it in the morning." She snuggled deeper into her chair, hoping to doze for a bit in the now-familiar, lulling rhythm of the EKG. She wasn't looking forward to making that call.

OOO

The next day, Abby dug the number for Dr. Gorin out of Holtzmann's notebook of contact numbers in her lab. She hesitated, sitting at the workbench, thumb hovered over the 'dial' button, ready to chicken out. Holtz was probably going to be fine in a few days and surprise all of them. Why worry the other woman?

But sitting in Holtz's lab, Abby could almost feel her watching expectantly and found the resolve to push the button.

The phone rang enough times Abby thought she was going to have to leave a voicemail—not the optimal way to deliver news like this—when suddenly the phone picked up.

"Hello?"

Abby cleared her throat. "Dr. Rebecca Gorin?"

"Yes, who is this?"

"Dr. Abby Yates? One of Holtzmann's Ghostbuster friends?"

There was a pause at the other end of the line. Then the voice returned, tense. "What's happened?"

Abby grimaced. Should've known she would know immediately. Why else would any of them other than Holtz call her? "There was an accident on a bust. Holtzmann's alive, but she hit her head really bad falling down a flight of stairs. She's in a coma."

Gorin drew in a long inhale. "All right. I'll be there as soon as I can. Whatever I need to sign, see if they'll allow verbal approval by phone."

"Oh, no, no," Abby assured her. "The paperwork's already good. This happened a couple weeks ago. She's being treated. I just thought you would want to know what was going on."

"Oh." Gorin's voice went oddly stiff and somewhat chillier. "I take it she gave you medical authority?"

"Uh, yeah," Abby said, suddenly beginning to regret this call.

"Hm." Gorin had a gift for being unreadably intimidating even over the phone. "I'll get the first train to New York anyway. Be there soon."

She hung up. Abby breathed out, lowering the phone. Of all the outcomes she had expected from that call, a territorial stand-off hadn't been one of them.

Well. This was going to be fun.

OOO

True to her word, Dr. Gorin swept into the ICU before the evening was out like a storm front that dared anyone mortal to try to block its path. Although none of the nurses were that familiar with Holtzmann's normal look, something about Gorin's resemblance and officious bearing got her to the nurses' station with only minor questioning. Abby's vouching had her added to the guest list quickly.

As expected, there was a tense air as Gorin greeted the girls. The moment she saw Holtzmann, though, something cracked under the veneer. Moving past the team as if they had ceased to exist, she walked to the bedside, the rare softness in her eyes still clearly reserved for Holtz alone.

Feeling awkward hanging around outside, Patty and Erin opted to go down to the cafeteria for a late dinner. Abby couldn't muster up an appetite, so she chose to stay nearby, milling around the nurses' station as she decided whether to hang out in the waiting room again. Part of her was still paranoid that every time she left would be the time Holtz crashed again.

"You know you might as well come inside," Dr. Gorin's voice called across the otherwise quiet room. "It's not like you'd be interrupting a conversation."

Abby swallowed, walking awkwardly back over to Holtzmann's room. "Just wanted to give you your privacy, not intrude on the moment."

"Noted. But I doubt Jillian would object to you hearing anything I might say. She certainly won't right now." Gorin gestured to the chair on the other side of the bed for Abby to sit down.

Abby didn't really want to be, for all intents and purposes, alone in a room with the other woman. She had a pervading sense Gorin didn't like them—or anyone other than Holtzmann really. But she accepted the invitation, folding herself quietly into the seat.

They sat for an awkward moment, filled only with the beeping of the heart monitor.

"I apologize for being so rude to you on the phone."

Abby looked up, startled. "Were you?" she deflected with a nervous politeness. "I wouldn't say ' _rude_ '. 'Authoritative' maybe, or—"

"Stop. I was trying to be rude," Gorin said calmly, eyes on Holtz's face. "I suppose I'm still not used to Jillian having others in her life."

"Ah." Abby wasn't sure what to say to that.

"They called me after the incident at CERN."

Abby looked up cautiously. Gorin's eyes were a bit distant, as if seeing the Holtzmann from those days across the years. "All the way from Switzerland. She was unconscious and injured, a possible manslaughter charge threatening to end her career. Thankfully that over-titled lab tech managed to hold on enough to drag himself into a coma." She snorted derisively, then frowned grimly. "Life always has been an ironic bastard."

Abby glanced at Holtzmann, only the respirator and electrodes indicating she was still on this side of the veil.

"I sat with her then, just like this, wondering if she would awaken, dreading the day would come where I had to make a decision. About what might need to be done for her should all other options run out."

Abby swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry and her stomach queasy.

Gorin looked up now, meeting Abby's eyes with something between scrutiny and sympathy. "When you called I suppose I found myself back there in that hospital, but this time with someone else making the decisions about her. Someone I barely knew. Still, I should have trusted that anyone Jillian thought so highly of would treat the job with the gravity it deserves."

Tears stung Abby's eyes behind her glasses. "I promise, I am. She's one of the best friends I've ever had and I love her like family. We all do. Being in charge of making the decisions is the hardest position I've ever been in."

Gorin nodded, looking at her for a moment more before returning her gaze to Holtzmann. "So I understand. You know, Jillian was very different when I met her. Still brilliant beyond her supposed peers, but very quiet. Internal. Angry, I believe, and perhaps afraid. Her life had not been a nurturing one for her potential. Even once I brought her to train in my lab, she was hesitant about exhibiting her passions. It took months before she seemed to realize I wasn't going to punish or reject her. I gave her the environment she needed to shine professionally, but I do suspect I failed her on the social front. Perhaps that's why she made the mistake at CERN…"

She didn't elaborate. Abby wasn't sure she wanted to know why Gorin thought that.

"Despite my initial reservations, I have come to believe joining your…organization is one of the best decisions Jillian ever made. She has not only thrived innovatively; you provide her the social environment I could not."

Abby found her throat tightening with emotion. She looked at Holtzmann, lying between them. With her hair down and no glasses or even her basic makeup, she looked notably younger than usual. For a moment, Abby flashed back to the young woman who had answered her ad years ago. She had been just as eccentric, but yes, quieter, warier. She would freeze after every joke, watching intently to see how it would land, ready to flinch back in on herself if it didn't go well. It had taken more than a year before she relaxed and seemed to trust Abby wasn't going to reject her, that she was actually liked and wanted.

That she was home.

"You know, I wasn't even looking for a friend," Abby said at last, smiling faintly. "After having a…really bad experience years before, I didn't want to let anyone else in, risk getting hurt again. So I was just planning on us being colleagues. But there's something about Holtz that just…pulls you in. Like an electromagnet. I didn't stand a chance."

Gorin actually gave a little chuckle, the corner of her mouth quirking up fondly. "She is a remarkable individual."

Then Gorin leaned over, her hand squeezing Holtzmann's forearm gently, but firmly. Bending her head near Holtz's ear, she said, "Which is why I refuse to believe a mere staircase could be enough to take her out."

Abby held her breath, half expecting Holtzmann to jerk upright and awake at her mentor's words. But nothing changed, not even a blip in her brainwaves.

Gorin apparently had been hoping for the same thing, looking a bit disappointed as she sat back in her chair, leaving her hand loosely curled around Holtz's arm.

Abby slumped back too. A somber silence settled over the room again, but with less awkwardness than before. Abby looked over at the older engineer. For all her brusqueness, she had been the first person to give Holtzmann a place she felt valued and cared about before she found the other Ghostbusters. And Holtz, even unconscious, was able to get through Gorin's intimidating personality and draw out something softer beneath. A vulnerability that was lending a forlorn air to her features as she trailed her thumb back and forth across Holtzmann's arm near the bruises from her latest IV.

And Abby decided to make a gamble. "Dr. Gorin, could I ask a favor while you're here?"

"You can ask," the woman replied, as bluntly as before.

Abby winced internally, but continued. "I wondered if you would be willing to take a look at the equipment Holtz built back at the lab? I've been doing my best to maintain it, but there are probably little things they need that Holtz just does without mentioning. I'm sure she'd feel better when she wakes up knowing you were there to take care of her babies."

Dr. Gorin's expression didn't change much, but she straightened up a bit, the sense of purpose seeming to revitalize her some. "I believe I can afford time to swing by tomorrow."

Abby smiled, pleased her idea had worked. "Thanks. I appreciate it."

"Mm." Gorin paused, then looked up at Abby. "I do think Jillian chose well entrusting you with her care. But I also understand the burden of being put in that position. If…" She paused, jaw tightening in a rare betrayal of emotion. "Should things progress to where you have to make a choice you don't wish to bear the responsibility for, don't be afraid to ask me to make it for you."

A little chill shivered up Abby's spine. She understood what Gorin was offering, the unspoken decision they all dreaded coming to pass. As cold and morbid as the offer sounded, the fact that she was willing to take that weight off Abby's shoulders, even though it would be no less painful for her to make that call, was one of the kindest gestures Abby had ever been given.

"Thank you. I'll keep that in mind."

Gorin nodded, turning her gaze back to her protégée.

Abby pulled her sweater more tightly around herself, as if the covenant they had just sworn drew the heat out of the room. The winter storm howled outside like a mockery of the respirator's steady hiss as the two women sat silent vigil around the small figure in the bed.

OOO

Dr. Gorin stayed a few days. Once assured Holtzmann was relatively stable, she tore herself away to take care of things in Holtzmann's lab. Abby watched, taking notes as she tweaked settings, adjusted pressure valves, tended the fission tanks, and rewired part of the containment unit Holtz had apparently been upgrading before her accident. But eventually, when it was clear the lab was in good shape and nothing was going to change at the hospital, she had to return to her classes. Substitutes could only cover so many extra days and even tenure couldn't excuse cancelled classes for long, especially when the affected person wasn't technically family. Before she left, though, she reiterated her offer to Abby and requested to be kept up-to-date on any changes.

After that, life fell back into routine. Lynch's public relations people handled press concerns and worked to keep attention away from the hospital and firehouse, though people were starting to notice Holtz's absence beyond the usual sphere of Ghostbusters 'fans'. There was no one else to be contacted, nothing else to be done except split their time between busts and visiting Holtzmann.

As much as Abby hated to admit it, they were getting a rhythm down with just the three of them. They had worked out new patterns during busts to accommodate the lack of a fourth proton stream. Abby knew how to repair basic, run-of-the-mill damage to the packs and could at least do temporary patches on bigger problems. They made it work and if it was busy enough, they could temporarily overlook the gaping void left by Holtz's absence. Mostly.

Still, between the increased physical demands and the prolonged emotional stress, they were all absolutely drained as they trudged out of the Ecto-1 and into the lobby after their fifth bust in three days.

"Hey, bosses," Kevin greeted from his desk, balancing a pen on the business card pyramid he had built.

They grumbled a greeting back.

He looked up, cocking his head. "You guys look tired."

"Good eye, Kev," Patty muttered, dumping her pack on a chair and stretching out her back.

"It's 'cause you're working too hard," he commented, as if imparting wisdom. "You should take a vacation like Holtzmann."

They all froze. Abby looked at him, head cocked. "Kevin, you know Holtz is in the hospital. You've been there to see her."

"That was when she hit her head. You said she got better from that and she's sleeping now."

The girls exchanged a look. "You think Holtz has been on vacation sleeping all this time?" Erin asked carefully.

"Oh yeah." Kevin nodded, resuming his effort to balance the pen again. "This one time when I was in Hawaii I slept for four days straight. Missed my plane, so I got to stay on vacation longer." He grinned. "Holtzmann's got me beat, though. She is _good_ at taking naps!"

Patty stepped over, speaking gently. "Sweetie, Holtzy's not just taking a nap. She's still in the hospital. She's still doing bad and can't wake up."

Kevin's earnest expression sobered a bit. Abby felt a little bad about correcting his understanding of the world. Ignorance truly was bliss.

His eyes flicked from one of them to the next and he leaned forward, somehow not knocking over the card pyramid. His eyes were intense.

"Is it fairies?"

Abby blinked. "I'm sorry?"

"Why Holtz can't wake up. You know, you go somewhere you're not supposed to or eat something you shouldn't and the fairies punish you and make you sleep for hundreds of years."

Erin rubbed the bridge of her nose. " _Fairies_ did not put a curse on Holtzmann—"

"But we'll add it to the list to check on," Patty interrupted.

Kevin gave her a cheerful thumbs-up and returned to his construction.

"You wanna explain brain injuries to that boy?" Patty hissed at Erin's incredulous look. "Besides, in his defense, ghosts did turn out to be real."

"Ghosts are scientifically measurable and documented! There's no scientific precedent for elves or fairies!"

"Are you kidding? Just this year _alone_ in Ireland and England there were twenty cases where…"

Abby tuned them out as her phone rang. Opening it wearily, she answered around a yawn, "Ghostbusters. Please describe the nature of your haunting."

"Dr. Yates?"

She perked up, recognizing the voice of one of Holtzmann's nurses. "Yes, it's me." She gestured Erin and Patty to be quiet.

"Hello, Dr. Yates. Are you and your team available to come by sometime today?"

"Of course, we can be there as soon as you want. Did something happen?"

Erin and Patty leaned in now too.

"There has been a development Dr. Sieber wants to discuss with you, in person."

"Is she awake?" Abby blurted.

"I can't discuss patient details over the phone. But come by whenever you're able and Dr. Sieber will tell you everything."

"Yeah, sure, okay. We'll be right there." Abby hung up, anxiety twisting her stomach.

"What did they say? Is she awake?" Erin asked eagerly.

"I don't know. She just said there's a development that the doctor needs to discuss with us in person."

"What does that mean?" Patty asked.

"If she was awake they'd just tell us, right?" Erin said.

"I don't know. But we won't find out until we get there," Abby said, grabbing her coat again and heading back out to the car.

* * *

 **Hear that thunder roll...**


	4. Chapter 4

**gave me some trouble trying to post chapter 3 a few days ago, so you get both updates at once. Fasten your seatbelts, folks! This is the part of the ride that gets a little wild.**

* * *

The drive to the hospital was tense. It had been so long since anything had changed in Holtz's status, but if whatever they were called in for was good news, the nurse would have just been able to say so over the phone. The woman's voice had been flatter than a typical clinical tone, nothing casual in it. Abby really wasn't sure she wanted to know what they were going to walk into there.

Getting off the elevator and entering the ICU, Abby's eyes automatically sought out Holtzmann's room. There were two medical people in scrubs doing something, but the bed was still occupied, much to her relief.

One of the nurses stood up from the central desk to approach them. "Ladies."

"Hi," Erin spoke up. "One of you called us to come in? Apparently something happened?"

"Yes." The nurse's voice was a gentle tone that scared Abby worse than if she had been gruff or rude. "If you come this way, Dr. Sieber will meet with you shortly."

They were escorted to an office with a desk, computer, and chairs to sit in, the same one where Sieber had shown them Holtz's MRIs when the brain swelling had gone down. The nurse helped them arrange three chairs in front of the desk, then assured them it would just be a few minutes and closed the door on her way out.

And again, they waited.

"I don't like this," Patty declared. "They put us in private so nobody will see us in case we get upset. Something's really wrong."

"But what?" Erin asked, fingers fidgeting anxiously. "Holtz has been stable for weeks. What would have changed in a day?"

"I don't know. I'm just telling you, it's gonna be bad."

Abby didn't say anything. They all knew. Nothing they could do but wait in the chairs for the doctor to come in and break it to them.

Abby had seen the world nearly end before. It was supposed to be black skies and chaos and blazing energy. Your world wasn't supposed to be devastated on a peacefully snowy day in a room that looked like somewhere you went to set up a mortgage.

She felt a hand squeeze hers and smiled up at Erin. The warmth anchored her in the sea of worry and she put her other hand on Erin's arm in return. Erin's other hand reached out to Patty and they threaded their fingers together, united for whatever was to come.

The door opened and they all jumped, snapping to attention.

"Ladies, thank you for coming in on such short notice."

He didn't do the handshake, Abby noticed. Her stomach rolled.

He set a file folder down on his desk. "I assume you've gotten the gist that it's not good news."

Even knowing, hearing it made Abby's hands start shaking. "What happened?"

He sighed, sitting down at the desk facing them. "It's not the outcome we wanted to have to give you. Last night, Dr. Holtzmann's brainwave patterns started weakening. The waves slowed beyond what is standard even for coma patients and became irregular. We pushed medications to boost neural activity, ran her bloodwork to see what was causing the struggle, but nothing worked. I'm sorry, but a few hours ago, all brain activity ceased and we can't get it back."

It was like a punch in the chest. Even with Erin's grip as an anchor, Abby's vision greyed and went to tunnel vision. She lowered her head, trying to breathe deeply against the lightheadedness.

 _No…_

"All…" Erin echoed. "So, wait, that's it? She's gone?"

"I'm afraid so." Sieber seemed genuinely regretful. "Life support is still running, but once all neural activity stops, we do have to declare the patient braindead."

"Oh god," Erin gripped Abby's hand harder, her other hand going to her mouth.

"And there's nothing y'all can do?" Patty's voice choked around tears. "I mean, stuff doesn't just stop working. Something broke. Can't you repair it or jumpstart it or something?!"

"We've explored every option. This isn't a single aneurysm or stroke. The brain is immensely complex and interconnected. Something finally gave out in an integral place and everything else shut down. Nothing about her coma has responded to the treatments they should have. We may not have a complete answer about what exactly happened until after they do an autopsy."

"Oh god." Abby swallowed hard, trying not to throw up.

The doctor seemed to realize how callous that sounded. "I'm sorry, that was blunt, especially while the news is still fresh. We still have her on the respirator and we're willing to keep that going as long as you'd like, but there won't be any change from here."

 _Meaning I'm going to have to decide when to turn it off_ , Abby thought miserably.

"So just delaying the inevitable, huh?" Patty sniffled. They were all barely holding together against tears. "There's no chance there's some tiny little spark you missed or anything?"

"I'm sorry. We did a functional MRI to be certain. Even with the imperfections of the image, the lack of activity was obvious.

Erin raised her head, cocking it slightly. "Imperfections?"

Sieber sighed. "We got some mild distortion of the MRI images. The techs are calling the vendor to get it fixed and we'll redo the scan tomorrow to remove the haziness, but it doesn't change the actual measurements and data, just the display image."

Erin sniffed. "Has the same problem happened with other patients' scans?"

"No, this is the first time it's happened. We're working on it, though."

"You think the machine's broken?" Patty asked, curious.

Erin made a noncommittal noise, indicating her brain was still actively working the problem. "Maybe, but the EEG still showed the decrease in energy too. Wasn't there an issue on Holtz's first MRI after the swelling went down? Some kind of visual artifact?"

"Yes," Dr. Sieber nodded, flipping through his file again. "Nothing major, but probably a sign the machine was starting to need maintenance."

"Did any of her other scans show weird side effects?" Erin demanded. "The CT scans or the X-rays?"

"No, nothing else."

"Only the MRIs…" Erin murmured, closing her eyes.

"What are you putting together?" Patty asked. "'Cause most I'm hearing is buggy machine."

"Maybe," Erin muttered. She opened her eyes. "MRI. That's magnetic resonance, yes?"

"Generating images from how atoms' nuclei alter the magnetic field, yes," Sieber confirmed, sounding curious too.

"Right," Erin nodded, eyes sharpening. "So potentially, an entity that affects the electromagnetic energy could disrupt it, right?"

Abby suddenly caught where she was going. "Erin, don't."

"What?"

"This isn't a ghost thing. As much as I'd like it to be because maybe then we could fix it, it's just…not."

"I'm not so sure. I mean, we still don't know why Holtz wouldn't wake up, right? Or why she wouldn't respond to treatment?" Erin asked Sieber, getting a nod. "Medically she should have made some progress. Maybe there's a reason."

"Doesn't mean the reason is possession," Abby insisted.

"Even if it was, why?" Patty asked. "What's the point in possessing someone just to keep them asleep?"

"I don't know, I just—" Erin turned to the doctor. "Can I see the MRIs? The ones with issues?"

"Uh, should be able to bring them up…" Sieber started checking files on his computer.

Abby sighed, lowering her head into her hands. She should be talking Erin out of this desperate false hope, but she'd never been good at talking Erin out of anything. Maybe it was a step of grieving, bargaining or denial or something, something Erin had to get through on her own.

Abby felt like she had jumped straight to depression and a sick resignation. She was going to have to do it. Sign the papers. Pull the plug. Decide when to let Holtzmann go.

 _I'm so sorry. Holtz, I should have been there to catch you or sent you with Erin or Patty in the first place. Something. I'm sorry…_

"Abby!" Erin's hand smacked her arm urgently, pulling her from her grief. "Are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

Abby looked up, wiping her eyes and putting her glasses back on so she could see the screen. A greyscale image filled the screen, multiple angles on cerebral tissue.

"Holtzmann's brain looking way too quiet?" she said dully.

"No. Focus on the distortions. That white haze. The streaks?"

Abby made herself focus, looking past the brain image to the visual anomalies, almost like trying to make a Magic Eye image work.

"The Goldney distortion?" Erin prodded. "We've seen it in countless photos of hauntings!"

Abby sighed. "I see what you're talking about. But Erin, we could be matrixing. Seeing what we want to see."

"So step back," Erin insisted as Patty scrutinized the screen. "If a client brought us these images, what would you say?"

Abby tried to think objectively, to push the overwhelming emotions out of her mind. But she threw up a hand. "I'd say we need more to go on."

"Really?" Erin snapped. Her fingers twitched agitatedly. "We need—Fine. You want more to go on? Still have a PKE meter with you?"

Abby blinked. Honestly, she had forgotten they were still in their jumpsuits. She groped in one of the pockets. "Uh, yeah."

Erin snatched in from her hand, stalking out of the office. "Come here."

Abby scrambled up, following her out with the equally bewildered Patty and Sieber.

"Ma'am?" Dr. Sieber called.

"Erin, what are you planning?" Patty asked as they tailed her back to Holtz's room. Sieber gestured to the nurses they were okay, probably.

"You want more evidence?" Erin said, adjusting the sensor. "We'll get you more evidence."

Abby stopped beside her. "Erin, if it was a ghost, don't you think we would have had some other sign?"

"Not if we looked at it the wrong way." Erin moved the scanner up Holtz's body, starting at her feet. "Disrupting magnetic equipment, no visible reason for Holtz not to be recovering, a sudden decline with no detectable cause…" She stopped, hovering the sensor over Holtzmann's head as the prongs of the PKE meter twitched and spun gently. "Ha!"

"You got something?!" Patty perked up.

"A spike in PKE only around her head."

"Well, a slight elevation," Abby clarified.

"Everywhere else in here has a baseline of seventy-five. Why would it be five units higher just around her head? And don't say the electrodes because I already controlled for electromagnetics."

It was a faint hint of PKE. On a bust it wouldn't be enough to warrant significant attention. It could just be ambient fluctuations or a lapse of sensor calibration.

A brief moment of horror whispered in Abby's mind that maybe it was Holtz herself, her spirit trapped between life and death by the life support machines, haunting her own body.

Erin interrupted her morbid thoughts by pushing the PKE meter into her hand. She aimed the end at her own head and looked at Abby expectantly. "Need a control? See any elevations around me?"

Patty leaned over Abby's shoulder, peering at the screen as the sensor pointed at Erin's head. "Nope. Nothing going on up there."

Erin glared dryly. "Thanks, Patty."

Abby still hesitated, locked in indecision.

Erin shoved the PKE meter aside, frustrated. "Something's here, I know it. Come on! We wrote our book on less evidence than this. The Abby I know would be jumping to test this idea!"

"That Abby didn't have to decide when we let Holtz die!" Abby snapped.

Erin froze, startled.

The room was suddenly quiet, but the floodgates were open now. All the emotion Abby had tried to push back for the last few weeks thundered its way out like a crashing river.

"You think I don't want you to be right? That we could just pull a ghost out of Holtz and she'd be fine? I would love that! But it could just be wishful thinking, reading what we want into ambiguous evidence. And we could get our hopes up again and when it doesn't work we'll just have to go through losing her again!"

"Baby…" Patty said soothingly, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder.

Abby shook it off, aware she was in full meltdown now, but beyond caring. All the waiting and hoping, the forced patience and helplessness, had come to a head and potential energy explosively converted to kinetic.

"I want Holtz to be okay. But I'm not stupid. I know odds are she's gone, that the damage is too bad and there's nothing left to save. And even though I know you guys are here to help, I'm the one who has to make the call. It's on me. Holtz put me in charge of her _life_ and I…" Her voice broke, tears blurring her vision as she looked past Erin to Holtzmann's lifeless form in the bed. She sucked in a breath around a sob. "I have to choose when we give up on her. I have to pull the plug."

"No. Abby…" All confrontation had faded from Erin and her face was nothing but softness and apology as she wrapped Abby to her in her arms. "I'm sorry."

The sobs came in full force now as Abby clung to her oldest friend. "I have to kill her."

"No. Sweetie, no."

"Give us a minute?" Patty murmured to Dr. Sieber and the nurses before joining the hug from the other side. "It's okay, baby. I know. It's okay."

Abby let herself just cry and hug her girls for a few minutes, feeling them join her in her grief. They had all been holding on for so long, trying to keep their spirits up and not give into the negative thoughts. But they needed to process them and let the emotions out. They needed this catharsis.

"I'm sorry," Erin said again when they calmed enough to get their voices back. "You're not carrying this alone. I promise. If that's where we are, we'll all make the call together, okay? You don't have to do it alone."

"Okay," Abby nodded, sniffling.

"I'm just one vote on this thing," Patty said, "but if we do get to that point, I think I'd feel a little better knowing we tried everything we could before giving up. I mean, what do we have to lose if we check out this ghost option? We keep Holtz on machines a few extra days?"

Erin looked to Abby expectantly, but wasn't pushing anymore.

Abby took off her glasses and wiped her eyes, giving the lenses a cursory clean before putting them back on. She took a steadying breath.

What would Holtzmann do?

"Well," she said, "it sounds like we have some research to do."

Erin brightened immediately. "Yeah? All right! Let's get to work!"

"Ha ha!" Patty clapped her hands together. "Hang in there, Holtzy! We'll work this out."

As having a new goal to work toward energized the others, Abby still couldn't shake the fear they were setting themselves up for a new round of heartbreak.

OOO

"Nothing? No weird activity in the basement? Disembodied movement of objects? Strange lights in dark rooms?" Abby asked.

"Not a peep," the man on the other end of the phone replied. "You ladies do a very effective job. I'd recommend you to anyone."

"Thanks." Abby jotted down a note. "All right, well just wanted to check. Let us know if anything paranormal happens again."

"I certainly will. And, uh, I'm very sorry about your teammate's injury. I hope she's recovering well."

Abby ignored the cold clench in her chest. "Thanks. Bye."

She hung up, walking back over to where Erin had Holtz's various scan images spread out over a desk. "Owner of the mansion says there haven't been any follow-up incidents. He thanked us for doing such a good job getting rid of the ghost."

"Even though we didn't actually catch and remove it?" Erin asked, looking up.

"Guess he thinks we came back to finish and didn't realize he never got a bill. But the ghost has been a no-show since we were there."

"I don't know about y'all, but I doubt our performance was enough to scare that ghost back into hiding for good," Patty commented from her stack of books in the corner that served as her library.

"But it would be logical if the ghost did leave with us because it's in Holtz," Erin said.

Abby sat on the edge of the desk. "It just doesn't make sense, though. Why possess Holtz and then not do anything? If it's lying in wait, what for?"

"Unless it messed up the possession somehow," Erin suggested. "Maybe her head injury interfered with the process and they got stuck together, neither able to do anything."

"Maybe. I mean, it would've gotten in right when she got knocked out, right? That should've made it easier."

Patty sat up, brow crinkling. "Wait a minute. Didn't rich mansion guy say people were having trouble sleeping there? Nightmares or something?"

"Uh, they couldn't sleep through the night." Erin closed her eyes, pulling up the memory that seemed like it was from years ago. "Weird dreams, waking up randomly, possible sleep apnea or sleep paralysis?"

Patty snapped her fingers. "Hang on…"

Abby watched Patty search her shelves. "What?"

"That reminded me of something…Ah!" She pulled out a thick, worn book on mythology of North America.

"You got something?" Erin asked.

"Maybe, if you give me a minute to look it up. Some of us actually gotta read a bit before we can remember all the details about obscure stuff."

Abby made herself be patient. She picked up one of the printed out MRI images, searching for new details they had missed.

"Knew it!" She jumped as Patty slapped the arm of her chair victoriously, pushing up to come their way. Patty plopped the book on top of their scattered papers. "Knew I'd heard something like that before. Look at this."

"Manitomets," Erin read, Abby leaning over her shoulder.

"It's kind of a bastardized name on the local tribes' word for 'spirit-eater'. I didn't think of it 'cause it's not exactly a ghost, but tell me this doesn't sound right. There's stories from various tribes, settlers, and hunters going way back before European colonization about caves around New York where anybody who made the mistake of sleeping in there didn't wake up again. No signs of violence, they weren't sick, just died in their sleep. A few people who were camped outside caves where this happened described some kind of monster hovering over the bodies or watching them from the darkness. Some of the legends even say it 'steals the breath' of the sleepers."

A little thrill of excitement kindled in Abby's mind. "If it's not a ghost, what is it?"

"I don't know. Some call it an elemental, others a demon or an angry god. There's even folks saying it's some kind of alien. It's all over the board. I mean, we're talking accounts going back before the written word. Check out this pictograph they found in one cave."

She turned the page, revealing a primitive drawing of a kite-like glowing shape hovering over a prone figure.

The thrill turned into an electric buzz up Abby's spine.

"Abby…" Erin breathed.

"I see it." This time she did, without reservation.

Abby lay the latest MRI image alongside the cave art picture. The margins of the white distortion, once seeming to be a shapeless, random smear, matched up almost perfectly with the shape of the creature in the ancient painting.

"Ohhh shit," Patty muttered.

"It's lying across her brain," Abby confirmed. "Blocking the scans and electrodes."

"Look at the tail." Erin pointed to the trailing end of the monster, then searched through the papers, finding the original side-view MRI from the initial search for why Holtzmann hadn't resumed breathing without life support. "There's a visual artifact, a glitch, on the picture around her brainstem. Could be the tail, or maybe the whole thing was curled up in the beginning?"

"Causing the pressure making it so she can't breathe!" Patty clapped Erin on the back. "Girl, you were right!"

"I mean, I just thought it was a ghost," Erin deferred. "I never would have guessed it was…whatever this is."

"It's primitive," Abby said, having started reading the book's entry in full. "I mean, if we're talking something that predates humans, we're not gonna be looking at a typical ghost. Probably some kind of coalescence of PKE, not truly sentient, but maybe still predatory. Like some kind of parasite, feeding off the victim's lifeforce?"

"Killing them and absorbing their PKE to sustain itself. Possess them, make them stop breathing, then consume their energy as they die." Erin looked up ominously. "This thing eats ghosts."

"Yeah, I ain't gonna sleep again knowing shit like that's out there," Patty grimaced. "Hang on, so why wasn't it killing anybody in the house then? It was just, like, interrupting people's sleep? Sounds like more of an annoyance than a life sucker."

"The trouble didn't start until the owner started renovations for his wine cellar," Abby mused. "The manitomet was probably buried in some closed off cave for who knows how long before his contractors accidentally released it. It's probably starved for energy, too weak to finish the job. Instead of possessing people enough to suffocate them, the victims kept waking up and breaking its grip."

"Until Holtz," Erin concluded, "who couldn't wake up because of her coma."

"So that thing's been sitting in her head trying to strangle her for almost a month?" Patty whistled. "Thank god for life support, huh?"

A sick revelation went through Abby. "If we had taken her off life support, the manitomet would have been free to consume Holtz's spirit."

"That's why she suddenly went downhill," Erin said, tapping the latest MRI. "I agree, I don't think we're dealing with a truly sentient presence, but it could have some amount of awareness. If it figured out the respirator was stopping it and the only way to get rid of the life support was to convince us Holtz was gone…"

"Then it started spreading out to block the electromagnetic energy of her brain waves from the sensors, making her appear braindead," Abby agreed.

"So she's still alive," Patty beamed. "The manitomet monster's just holding her prisoner."

"I mean, that's what makes the most sense to me," Erin shrugged. "I could be wrong or it could have caused enough damage her brain really did shut down, but it's a bet I'm willing to take."

"Either way, we need to get it out," Abby said, drumming her fingers on the desk. "If it gets loose, it's got a whole hospital of easy prey to feed on."

"Have we got the stuff to do that?" Patty asked.

"It seems to be PKE-based, even if people called it a demon or an alien," Abby said, doing the mental math. "So our equipment should work on it."

"But we can't use a trap until it's out of Holtzmann's head," Erin frowned. "And we can't shoot her with a proton stream."

"Which means we need a whole new tool to extract spirits from someone's brain." Abby rubbed her eyes.

"Y'all can build something like that, right?" Patty asked.

Erin and Abby exchanged a look.

"I can design it," Erin said, holding up her hands. "I can work out the math and the theory, but I've never actually built or wired anything that complex."

Abby blew out a breath. "I think I can do it. I'm no engineer, but I worked with Holtz long enough she taught me a few things. It won't be anything like what Holtzmann could come up with—"

"Well, Holtzy ain't here," Patty cut in bluntly, "and she's counting on us, so we've gotta be good enough. Put a welder in my hands and show me where to use it. Whatever we gotta do to get this built."

Erin nodded firmly and even Abby felt her motivation rising.

"You're right. Good pep talk, Patty." She pulled out a sheet of paper to start sketching blueprint ideas. "We're coming, Holtz! Hang on!"


	5. Chapter 5

Surprisingly, selling Dr. Sieber on their plan wasn't as hard as they thought. Apparently their fame since the Battle of Time Square gave them more clout than they had had previously. Probably didn't hurt that the doctors were out of ideas themselves and had nothing to lose by humoring them. Especially when they mentioned the potential risk to other patients if the manitomet escaped from Holtzmann's head.

"Well, I need to clear it with my superiors, but I'm willing to let you try," Sieber said, folding his hands on his desk. "On a few conditions."

"Of course," Abby agreed as the others nodded.

"You can't do it during normal visiting hours. Too much disruption and risk to families, not to mention attention. It'll have to be after hours once most people have gone home."

"No problem, we're used to that," Erin agreed.

"Any and all damages will be billed to your business or the city."

"Of course."

"Yep, that's fair," Patty nodded.

"And, related to that, you're talking about a device that may give off electromagnetic charges, right?"

"Among other things, yes," Abby confirmed.

"Then for the safety of all involved, we'll have to disconnect Holtzmann from anything electronic while you do it."

That brought Abby up short mid-assurance.

"Any… _Anything_ electronic?" Erin asked, clearly thinking the same way.

"Yes. Including life support," Sieber said solemnly.

"Ohhh…" Patty breathed, pushing back in her chair.

"I mean, it's a plastic tube, not metal," Erin protested. "Couldn't there be an exception—?"

"I can't take that chance. Plastic or not, if any of that charge manages to conduct or jump back to the respirator, not only would we be out an expensive machine, but it could damage the building's power grid. If you mess up power to this building, a lot of people are going to die. I'm sorry, but I can't let you risk the lives of the people under my care. I'm willing to let you try this, but only under these conditions."

Abby swallowed.

"So, this is like a one-shot deal then?" Patty said.

"Good thing we're good under pressure, huh?" Erin said with a nervous chuckle.

 _Yeah_ , Abby thought. _'Cause the stakes weren't high enough already._

OOO

It took a few days. None of them had Holtzmann's insomniac aptitude to whip up a nuclear-powered work of art overnight. They got a bit of a leg-up when they discovered Holtz had been toying with an idea for a device to suck ghosts out of possessed clients, but it was still very much in the tinkering stage and needed a lot more work. They modified from her partially-made framework, attaching a wire head massager as the interface, but had to fill in all the gaps to make it functional themselves.

Erin had pored over the equations, collaborating with Patty, who had been working on learning coding anyway since joining the team. They brought their work to Abby, who tried to figure out how to apply it into the extractor's design.

Working in Holtzmann's lab in the firehouse felt familiar and raised their spirits—literally and figuratively—but as the work went on, Holtz's absence became more and more apparent. Especially on Abby's end.

Like when she tried activating the extractor for a test cycle and a surge crackled down the side, melting the connections into a smear of slag. As Patty doused it with CO2 spray, Abby swore, shoving a stool against the wall.

"Hey, hey." Erin rounded the table to soothe her, catching her arms. "It's okay."

"That was the fifth configuration we've tried, Erin!" Abby snapped. "I can't do this!"

"You can. It's okay. Let's just take a walk, okay? Breathe it out."

"Y'all can walk it off if you want. I'm walking my way home for the night." Patty scrubbed her face. "None of us are gonna do Holtz any good like this. Just call it a night."

"Yeah, I think we're all worn out," Erin agreed. "Go ahead and get some rest, Patty. We'll be along in a second."

"Okay. But either of you starts a fire while I'm gone, you're cleaning it up."

Abby breathed through her frustration as Patty headed down the steps.

"You okay?" Erin asked softly.

"No, I'm not okay, Erin! I can't make this work."

"You can," Erin soothed. "You will."

"What if I can't? I'm not Holtzmann. I'm not a gifted engineer. I'm just a paranormal specialist. Holtz would have known exactly what this needs. She thought in circuit diagrams. I'm trying to do what she would have, but I'm not her." Abby kicked the bench for good measure. "Ow."

"Don't do that," Erin said quietly.

"It's a table. I didn't break it."

"No. Don't talk bad about yourself. And don't use past tense with Holtzmann. She's not gone yet."

"If I can't make this thing work, she will be! As soon as we take off life support, the manitomet is going to attack her, and if we don't suck it up, it's going to consume her ghost. I don't know how all this works with the afterlife, but that sounds pretty frickin' final to me!"

"I know." Erin pulled her into a hug. The contact was comforting in spite of Abby's desire to stay grumpy. "I know. I'm scared too. But that's why we're going to make sure it's perfect. All of us. And we won't try to use it until we _all_ agree we're ready. I promise."

Abby sighed, hugging Erin back. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yeah."

Erin gently pushed back. "Let's quit for the night. It'll be easier with fresh eyes tomorrow."

Abby sighed at the cooling, scorched piece of metal. "Yeah. All right."

OOO

As they headed out their separate ways, Abby opted for a cab. She didn't feel like dealing with the crowds of the subway.

As the cab made its way toward her side of town, though, the silence of her apartment didn't sound appealing either. On an impulse, she told the driver to change course and headed for the hospital.

It wasn't technically visitors' hours, but the Ghostbusters' fame allowed some small privileges and the nurses knew them well enough by now. Alyssa, the most frequent face from the night shift, simply looked up and nodded a greeting as Abby signed in on the visitor log.

Abby respected the other patients and just pulled up a chair to sit beside Holtzmann in the subdued lighting. The shadows only seemed to accentuate the rough state Holtz was in. Despite the nurses' care, her hair seemed lank and dark. Shadows like bruises lurked in the hollows of her eye sockets and below her eyes. She wasn't pale; she was past that. Abby wasn't certain what the word 'sallow' meant, but she was pretty sure it applied to Holtz at that point. They had busted ghosts that looked more alive than she did.

Abby took a shaky breath, feeling the tears of stress and pent-up grief creeping up on her. She squeezed Holtzmann's unresponsive hand gently.

"I don't know if you can really hear us or not, but we're still here, Holtz. We've got one last thing we're gonna try, so we need you to keep holding on, okay?" She sniffled, the tears starting to blur her vision. "But if we're fooling ourselves and you really are gone and just want us to let you go, or if you really do need more time and you could still get better somehow, I could really use some kind of sign. Anything at all. Just so I know I'm doing the right thing."

Abby waited, looking around, even pulling out a PKE meter to check. But there was nothing. She supposed she wasn't surprised. Nothing had happened the whole time Holtz had been in the hospital. It wasn't any more likely to happen now than before.

Abby allowed herself a moment to let the situation wash over her, the tears coming fast as she stifled her tears so not to disturb the hushed darkness of the ICU. No one tried to comfort her or tell her it would be okay or to stay optimistic. She could just let herself feel the emotion. Just another grieving family member at a loved one's bedside.

A thought perked in her mind. She pulled herself together, wiping her face clean as she calmed her sobs back under control. Once she trusted she could keep her voice sounding mostly normal, she took out her phone and dialed a now-familiar number.

As the phone rang, she remembered how late at night it was, but the line connected after only three rights. "Hello?"

"Dr. Gorin? It's Abby Yates."

"Yes." Gorin sounded awake in an instant. "Has there been a change?"

"Yeah." Abby was aware how flat her voice sounded despite her efforts. "You could say that."

"Ah." Gorin's voice lost its energy, sinking to a tone more like Abby's. "I take it the time has come to make a decision."

"No! Well, yeah, kind of, but not like that. That's not why I called, exactly."

"Abigail, it is very late at night. Please be clearer than that."

"Sorry. We have reason to believe a ghost-like entity is in Holtz's head trying to kill her so it can consume her psychokinetic energy. That's why she's not breathing on her own and why she seemed to go braindead a few days ago."

"I see," Gorin responded, less judgmentally than she could have.

"So we have a plan to remove it," Abby continued, "but in order to use our extractor, they'll have to disconnect her from life support. So," she huffed ruefully, "kind of a high-stakes field test."

"Mm." Gorin's response gave Abby no hint what she was thinking. There was a moment's pause that did nothing to ease her nerves. "If you are correct, this would resolve Jillian's condition so she could recover?"

"We believe so, yes."

"So when are you proceeding with the extraction?"

Abby stuttered a bit. "Uh, we're still building the device, but, um, you don't have any reservations about this? I mean, betting Holtz's life on one shot?"

"If you continue as things are, is Jillian going to recover on her own?"

Abby blinked. "Uh, no, doesn't look like it."

"Are there other treatments the doctors believe will work?"

"No. They are out of options at this point."

"Then the question, Dr. Yates, is if this extraction is Jillian's only possibility for either restoration or the release of death, are you considering keeping her on life support for _her_ sake or yours?"

That struck Abby in the solar plexus. She opened her mouth a few times, but couldn't find anything to answer.

Gorin sighed, seeming to have mercy on her. "I understand your concern and the difficulty of the position you are in. But you know Jillian as I do. Would she rather wither away in a bed unconscious for years on the off chance something changed, or potentially die as the test subject of an experimental invention?"

"Test subject," Abby muttered grudgingly.

"Indeed. Jillian has never been the cautious type about her health. Do not be so on her behalf. This risk sounds preferable to inaction."

Abby nodded, knowing she was right. Her eyes roamed over Holtzmann's face, trying to remember exactly what it had looked like animated. "What if I mess up the extractor?" she asked, voice small.

"We can never rule out mechanical failure," Gorin said patiently, a tone Abby realized Holtz would probably have been very familiar with from her school years. "But if you wish, you are welcome to send me your schematics. See if I can provide any input."

"That'd be amazing," Abby exhaled, some of the fear in her chest unclenching. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it. But do inform me how things turn out."

"Of course. You'll be the first to know."

"Good. Good night, Abigail."

"Good night, Dr. Gorin."

She hung up the phone, feeling more reassured than she had in days. Pulling her sweater more tightly around her, Abby found a comfortable position in her chair and stayed there until she dozed off at Holtz's bedside.

OOO

"Seriously, with everything we see on the job, I'm just surprised _this_ is what freaks you out."

As it turned out, Gorin concluded their designs were reasonably good and mostly were failing due to choice of materials more than a fundamental issue. Once they switched some components for more resilient metals with less resistance, things started coming together quicker. And now, they were ready to test it.

"It's not the dummy itself that freaks me out, it's the fact you've got like a dozen of these things stored in a cooler in the basement," Patty said, helping Abby mount a ballistics gel dummy on a frame in the alley. "Why you need so many of these things anyway?"

"For tests like this," Abby said, securing the frame from the top of a footstool.

Patty grimaced, rubbing her hands on her pants as she watched the floppy figure loll in place. "Y'all couldn't use anything else for this?"

"We need to make sure the extractor can suck a ghost out of a human body without doing any damage to the person. Ideally, I would've asked your uncle if he had a cadaver we could borrow."

"Which is _not_ happening."

"Well, so, here we are." Abby patted the dummy's head. "Erin, how's it going back there?"

Behind the dummy, Erin—fully suited up and wearing her proton pack—was setting an occupied ghost trap on the ground and stretching the cord of the foot pedal. "We're good. I tried to pick one who's not too feisty."

"Nice. Kev, you ready to record?"

Seated atop the dumpster nearby with the handheld camera, Kevin grinned around the gum he was chewing and threw her a thumbs-up. They had learned he was actually a decent cameraman as long as you appealed to his film set experience.

"All right." Abby climbed down, dragging the stepstool out of test range. "Better gear up, Patty. Erin, when I give you the sign, you let it go, all right?"

"Ready." Erin powered up her pack.

"Man, I hope we don't have to go chasing that thing." Patty finished shouldering her pack and activated it too.

"You and me both." Abby picked up the extractor. "Kevin, action!"

"You got it, boss."

Assured he was recording, Abby flipped the power switch on the extractor. A blue vortex of energy formed in the middle of the metal prongs. It hummed, but didn't spark or overheat. Swallowing anxiously, she called, "Hit it, Erin!"

Erin stomped on the foot pedal. The trap opened and a Class 3 specter flew out, shrieking. Erin quickly fired her wand and leashed it with a proton stream. Struggling a bit like a fisherman with a large catch, she managed to restrain the ghost, maneuvering it so the phantom was pressed against the back of the dummy. "Now, Abby!"

Abby pushed the end of the former scalp massager against the dummy's chest, red energy crackling with the contact. The ghost immediately felt the effects of the vortex, bellowing as its limbs got pulled into the dummy.

Erin shut off the proton wand and the ghost, no match for the extractor's suction, was dragged, howling, through the dummy and into the extractor's storage chamber on the other side.

Abby cut the power, backing up. "We got it!"

"It worked!" Patty cheered, raising her wand in celebration. "That was it working, right?"

"Containment's holding," Abby confirmed, looking over the extractor's digital screen. "How's it look back there?"

"I don't see any burns or damage," Erin said, examining the dummy. "There's a lot of ectoplasm on its back, but if that's the only side effect, could be worse."

"So we've got it." Patty walked over. "We're ready to try it on Holtz."

"I mean, it's not a perfect test. It wasn't real flesh and bone and we couldn't test for all possible effects on nervous tissue—"

"But it's as good as we're going to get without another live subject," Erin concluded.

"Yeah," Abby agreed, keenly feeling the weight of the device in her hands.

"Great job, guys!" Kevin called, lowering the camera. "Ready to reset everything for take 2?"

"That's all right, Kevin." Abby straightened up. "It's showtime."


	6. Chapter 6

**I meant to post all the remaining story as one chapter, but haven't gotten to finish the concluding scenes yet and wanted to get you guys something, so I think this is a good dividing point. Then we'll have a conclusion/epilogue after this. Until then, all of you who have stuck with the ride this long? We're on the last hill before heading back to the station.**

* * *

Arriving at the hospital this time, the girls weren't directed though the main entrance. Instead, the Ecto-1 was waved into the employee levels of the garage and they were guided by security to a service elevator. This wasn't a new experience for them; many hotels and other busy locations preferred they conduct their work clandestinely. However, as they rode up, proton packs in tow and the extractor in a bag at Abby's side, she reflected the stakes had never felt so personally high.

The sun had gone down hours ago and the hospital was quiet. Away from the ER, there was very little in the way of foot traffic and they were asked to be quiet so as not to disturb the sleeping patients in the rooms they passed. They had forgone their jumpsuits this time, but their equipment earned them some looks from the cleaning staff and techs on the night shift.

When they finally reached the ICU, its waiting room was deserted. The nurses' station and medical bays beyond felt oddly crowded compared to the skeleton staff in the rest of the hospital. As Dr. Sieber explained, with the possible risk involved in this procedure, they had called in extra personnel, either to try to stabilize Holtzmann should this work, or to help any other patients affected if it went very wrong.

If things went wrong enough the manitomet was not only confirmed real but escaped into the hospital, they were more likely to need proton packs than medical professionals, but Abby didn't want to think too much about that possibility unless it came to pass.

As the staff took up places in and around Holtzmann's room, Alyssa the nurse stepped forward with a clipboard. Abby gulped. Sure enough, it was the set of forms she had never wanted to sign: the permission to remove Holtz's life support. Even knowing they were doing it to have a shot at saving her, it still filled Abby's stomach with lead as she signed the papers.

With that, there was no going back. Abby took a shaky breath, feeling Erin's and Patty's hands on her shoulders, reminding her she wasn't alone. Holtzmann didn't need her emotional right now. She needed the Ghostbusters.

The glass front wall of Holtzmann's room had been covered with sheets, Abby noticed as they entered. Given what they were about to do, it made sense. Ghosts were alarming enough to see even with experience. No need to freak out any patient who might pick that moment to wake up and scare them back into unconsciousness.

The doctors ran through their checklists and prepared for the procedure, shoulder-to-shoulder with the girls as they checked their own equipment. There was barely room for the proton packs in the cramped space, but they didn't want to risk needing them and having to suit up with an angry primeval ghost already on the loose.

Abby carefully withdrew the extractor from its bag, checking that the wires were all still connected, the prongs unbent. Alongside the smooth, sleek medical equipment it felt clunky and amateurish, but Abby reassured herself it had Dr. Gorin's approval and would be up to the task.

All too soon, the doctors had finished their preparations and waited expectantly. Abby considered giving the extractor a triple check, something to stretch the time, but knew she couldn't put this off forever. She nodded to the medics. It was moment of truth time. Do or die.

 _Dammit, why did I have to think that?_

Dr. Sieber stepped up to the opposite side of the bed. "All right, we're going to start removing equipment. We'll take the respirator off last to buy you as much time as possible, but you will only have a short window. If her brain tissue is still alive, it will only last about five minutes without oxygen before it does die. Just to make sure we're clear, we will not be able to resuscitate her again after this."

In her peripheral vision, Abby saw Erin suck in a shaky breath, hand finding Patty's arm. Abby felt the same sick nerves, but forced herself to be steady. Looking down at Holtzmann's face, she remembered Gorin's advice.

Screw caution. Take risks. Be Holtz.

"I won't activate it yet, but can I position the extractor now? So we don't waste any time?"

"As soon as all the electrodes are clear, sure."

Abby waited, foot bouncing with nervous energy, as a tech peeled the adhesive pads off Holtzmann's forehead and scalp. Once they were gone, Abby gently spread the metal prongs around her skull, making sure the device encircled her cranium, leaving no easy way for the manitomet to evade the hollow laser's suction. The containment chamber and body of the extractor rested on the pillow above Holtz's head, Abby standing beside it, hand near the power switch.

She watched, muscles like a loaded spring, as the nurses carefully removed Holtzmann's IVs and monitors. As they disconnected the EKG, it gave off the too-recognizable flatline tone. Abby's own heart stuttered before a nurse quickly reached over and turned off the alarm, wincing apologetically.

"All right." Dr. Sieber met Abby's eyes over the bed. "I'm going to leave her intubated to save time and in case she needs help breathing should she wake up. But I'm shutting off the respirator and disconnecting the hose now."

Abby nodded brusquely.

"We're here, Holtz," Erin blurted before he pressed the power button.

"Hang on, baby, we've gotcha," Patty added.

Abby said nothing, refusing to have the mindset that these were their last words to Holtzmann.

The hiss of the respirator stopped and Sieber unclipped the hose from the connector protruding from Holtzmann's mouth. For a terrible heartbeat, Abby watched the last exhalation trail off and Holtzmann's body went still.

The world seemed to stop around them for an instant in time.

And then Abby stabbed the power button on the extractor.

The hollow laser surged to life, a blue vortex above Holtzmann's head as red energy arced down the prongs and across her skull. Her body arched off the bed, the energy crackling into her nervous system.

The medical team backed away. Erin and Patty shifted their proton wands to the ready position.

For a few seconds, Abby wondered if they had been wrong and all they were doing was jolting Holtz's body with electricity to no avail. But then, below the glow of the red and blue, she started to see a green energy emerging from Holtzmann's head.

A rumbling hiss accompanied the increasing mass of green light. A few gasps and murmurs came from the nurses and techs. Abby held her ground, upping the power output of the extractor with a slight snarl.

"Gotcha, you son of a… Come on!"

The vortex whirled faster and the green mass resisted a moment more. Then, with a shriek unheard by human ears for centuries, the creature was torn out into the cage of metal prongs.

Abby stared, eyes wide. There it was. Exactly as depicted in the ancient pictograph, albeit more detailed and glowing. Patty was right. They were right. In the clutches of their invention, the legendary proto-ghost flared its wing-like flaps, like a manta ray or shark thrashing in a net. This glorified blob of PKE that was barely the size of a pigeon, yet was capable of causing so much harm.

Abby frowned briefly. It was out. Why wasn't it getting sucked into the containment section? Scanning the situation, her eyes noticed the tail, a tendril of green energy, disappearing into the back of Holtzmann's head like an anchor. Panic stirred in her chest and she cranked the power up to maximum, needing to get that thing away from Holtzmann as fast as she could.

The manitomet screeched at the increased voltage, its body stretching as it was pulled into the core of the extractor. Finally its tail came loose from Holtzmann's head and whipped into the storage chamber behind its body like a frayed wire.

Abby immediately shut the machine off, pulling it away from Holtz in case the containment chamber didn't hold. But when it didn't so much as tremble with the prisoner inside, she held it aloft, whooping victoriously. It worked! She turned back to the bed and…

Her exuberance drained away.

Holtzmann had slumped limp on the bed again, just as unmoving as before. But this time without life support.

 _No._ Abby's mind raced. What happened? They had figured it out. They got the manitomet out. She hadn't really considered what to do if they were right, but it didn't solve the problem. Did they need to do CPR? Were they already too late and the damage was done? Or—she felt nauseous—what if the removal itself, ripping the ghost out of her brain, had caused fatal damage that could have been avoided with a different method? Had rushing to get the tail out broken her neck?

As the seconds ticked by without movement, Patty and Erin lowered their proton wands, shoulders slumping.

" _Damn_ ," Patty whispered, closing her eyes as the hope that had driven them for days finally gave way to angry grief.

"Holtz…" Erin stepped over to squeeze Holtzmann's hand, limp under her touch.

Abby remained frozen. It couldn't be. After _everything_ , all of this, it didn't work. They still failed.

Dr. Sieber walked softly to the other side of the bed. "Ladies, I'm so sor—"

With a full-body shiver, Holtzmann suddenly gasped loudly, eyes flying open.

Everyone leapt backward with a startled yelp, Patty bringing her proton wand up instinctively.

But it didn't seem to be a ghost possession or seizure. The initial gasp was followed by another, a little deeper, then another. Holtz was breathing again. Her eyes were a little wild, but they seemed aware, the breaths whistling through the tube in her mouth fast, but steadying.

"Holtz?" Erin leapt back to the bedside and gripped her hand tighter, this time having to hold on as it jerked a bit, the nerves spasming after weeks of disuse.

"Baby?!" Patty practically dropped her weapon as she moved to lean over the bed, beaming. "Oh my god. Thank you, Jesus! Ha!"

But they were quickly directed back from the bedside as the medical team scrambled to check on Holtzmann and stabilize her so she stayed awake and alive again.

Which was just as well for Abby since her knees had basically turned to jelly at that point. Slumping into the chair near the head of the bed, she let the extractor rest in her lap and flopped her head back against the wall.

Holy shit. Hooooly fricking… Fuck.

She couldn't form coherent thought, just sent exhausted, relieved 'thank you's to whatever part of the universe let their crazy plan work.

"Abby?" she heard Erin ask worriedly, a hand resting on her shoulder.

She gave a thumbs-up in return, assuring the others they didn't have a second person passed out now, and just continued to let the sound of busy medical professionals wash around her and carry the stress and fear away.

The EKG rhythm restarted as a sensor was put back on and the room filled with its familiar sound that had been the backdrop to all their visits for the last month. But Abby gave a relieved sob, tears starting to fill her eyes, because this time the heartbeat was fluttering and energetic and _alive_.

The peace was interrupted abruptly by a horrible gagging noise and Abby's head jerked up. She realized, around the cluster of bodies surrounding Holtz's bed, they were removing the breathing tube, and was grateful she couldn't see past the nurses.

Patty, taller than most of the medical team, turned her head, grimacing. "Yep, don't need that image in my head."

But finally the gagging and apologetic reassurances from the nurses gave way to just a hoarse cough and more organic-sounding breathing.

"Good, you did great. The worst part's done," Dr. Sieber said gently to Holtzmann. "Now your throat's going to be inflamed for a while as it heals, so don't be surprised if it hurts. I wouldn't strain it or talk more than you have to, but we'll get you something cool to drink as soon as we're sure your body's ready for it, okay? Holtzmann?"

Abby peered around a nurse and saw Holtzmann's eyes were darting around the room, a distressed look on her face. Abby's heart raced again. She had forgotten they hadn't ruled out the possibility of some lingering brain trauma. She could have amnesia or loss of some sensory abilities. There could be residual nerve damage anywhere. She might have personality changes. Not be the Holtz they knew.

But then a few of the nurses shifted around, creating a gap, and Holtzmann's searching eyes locked on the three of them. A huge smile lit up her face, eyes twinkling despite the shadows under them, and Abby knew she was still Holtz.

"Yeah, your friends are here," Sieber said warmly behind Holtzmann. "They've been here the whole time. It's thanks to them you're still alive."

Holtzmann didn't try to talk, but her eyes met each of the girls' in turn for a moment. Then Holtz winked and relaxed back on the bed, giving Dr. Sieber and the nurses her attention again as they guided her through some simple tests to check her brain and nerve functioning. In the background, her heartbeat had settled into a calm, easy rhythm.

And, at long last, so could Abby's.


End file.
